An Elegy For The Hekimbasi

“We always have two seats for Cornucopia.”

When the organizer of the classical concerts at the Hekimbasi Yali sent me those words in an email, my heart leaped. I’d attended one baroque music concert in the splendid Ottoman summer house on behalf of Cornucopia Magazine, and found it to be a magical, evocative experience (which I wrote about here for Cornucopia). I returned the next month for a solo piano recital of Bach music accompanied by projections of Klee paintings, drawing the direct line between Bach’s music and Klee’s abstract color compositions. I sipped a glass of red wine and listening to the gray rain patter outside and felt immensely grateful for these beautiful cultural experiences that I could only have in Istanbul.

On Saturday, April 7, a ship passing through the Bosphorus Strait lost control of its steering and crashed directly into the ruby red Hekimbasi, ripping open the historic mansion like it was made of paper. The pictures post-crash make the Yali look like a smashed dollhouse.

When I see those images, I see those gray afternoons that I spent luxuriating in the Hekimbasi’s history, soaking in the sweet sounds of classical music. I see the faces of the friends who accompanied me, equally immersed in the magic of the afternoon. I see the second bridge looming over the oxblood facade, casting the shadow of modern Istanbul over its Ottoman past. I think of essays I’ve read on the yalis, and the Hekimbasi specifically, celebrating and preserving the stories of the house.

The destruction of the Hekimbasi is a loss for all of us in Istanbul, for us who have been lucky enough to sit within its walls, for those who have admired the red walls of the jewel box mansion as they’ve floated by on a boat, for those who have never seen it, but live in a city that is shaped by the history it represents. The Hekimbasi crumpled. We should all feel that loss.