The house
Built in 1892 on a slope above the Kuzguncuk shore, restored over three years and opened as Aethel in 2019. Thick walls keep it cool in August and warm in February.
The old kitchen garden is now a lawn, two fig trees and the linden that gives us our tea. At its end, behind a wall of the original rubble stone, is the plunge pool: kept at 16°C all year and lit by lanterns after dark.
Our version of an Istanbul bath, for one or two guests at a time. The central slab is heated to around 45°C, the basins run warm and cool, and the copper bowls were made in Kapalıçarşı. It is where the kese ritual happens.
A small Finnish sauna lined with cedar, heated to 80°C, with a window onto the garden so you can see the plunge pool waiting.
Each room has a window, a heated table and a dimmer instead of a playlist. Room Five is the double room for couples’ treatments and looks over the garden.
Under the restored roof beams, with a strip of Bosphorus between the neighbours’ chimneys. Classes, sound baths and, once a month, the full-moon evening.
The rest room is for lying down and doing nothing; phones stay in the lockers. The tea room next door serves lunch on Sanctuary Days and tea all day for everyone.
Practical
Washed in-house and dried in the garden when the weather allows.
Separate changing rooms with showers, hairdryers and Ayvalık olive oil soap.
Reception, tea room, garden, one treatment room and an accessible washroom.
On İcadiye Caddesi. Or take the ferry to Üsküdar and a ten-minute taxi.
Visit
Tell us what you would like and when. We confirm by WhatsApp, phone or email within two hours.
Photos by HUUM, Virginia Marinova, Antonio Araujo on Unsplash · Photos by Andrea Piacquadio, Cliff Booth, Engin Akyurt, Ahmet ÇÖTÜR, Wilcle Nunes on Pexels