Though living up to Town & Country's bold promises of "a fantasy of Ottoman opulence" that's "filled with the enticing secrets of Turkish bazaars" sounds like a tall order, the Macar Feyzullah Pasha—a restored "hunting pavilion" originally built by an exiled Hungarian pasha in the 1850s—more than deserves its reputation as "the most beautiful home in Istanbul." Featured in the June/July issue and lovingly restored by Turkish designer Serdar Gülgün, the glamorous home doesn't offers a single sign of modern technology. The place is furnished almost completely in antique pieces like red lacquer altar tables, enormous porcelain urns, "bronze serpentine sconces," and miles of ornate carpeting. According to Gülgün, even the restoration process was carried out using traditional, period-appropriate techniques.
Among the home's many glittering ballrooms, tea rooms, and lounges, the Chinese ancestral portraits and life-sized, crown-wearing taxidermy lion in the second floor salon stand out, as do the jewel-toned, hand-painted fresco ceilings in the top level's lounge. Town & Country has the full gallery, right this way.
· The most beautiful home in Istanbul [Town & Country]