As anyone who has visited Bodrum can attest, each town along the peninsula has its own distinct personality. While Bodrum city is highly social, Göltürkbükü is cool and glamorous. Yalıkavak is rich and understated, while Gümüşlük is free spirited and bohemian, and so on. Some of the most prominent people of Turkey -all of whom call Bodrum home at least part of the year- have let us into their lives and homes and shared their personal views about the ever-changing nature of this beloved place by the sea.

While many Bodrumites, long-time visitors and residents alike, may lament the good old days of the peninsula, when life was quiet and not overly commercialized, Mr. Korman is completely unrestrained in his criticism of the people who created today’s Bodrum.

“I can tell you, what I would never go to Bodrum if it weren’t for my house there, which I built 25 years ago,” says Mr. Bülent Korman. “It is nothing but a nouveau riche extension of Istanbul now. Nouveau riche is the key word. I’m not talking about rich people but the new money people. They make every effort to build larger houses and not white, traditional houses.” He explains that the ‘downfall of Bodrum’ started in the town of Aktur, which was apparently turned into the first cooperative housing development by bureaucrats and the ‘elite’ who were the first to build large non-traditional homes. “Aktur opened the way for the rest. It does look better now, with more trees; but it was the first injury to the Bodrum peninsula,” says Korman.

Korman says the nouveau riche started surfacing in Turkey over the past 20 years and that they transformed Bodrum from a beach town into a suburb of Istanbul. “You can see this in the new houses, in the way people are living, in entertainment, in everything,” says Korman. He explains that the influx of the newly rich in Bodrum started with the arrival of the airport, which was built in the early 1980s. The newly wealthy of Turkey mostly got that way by purchasing real estate a long time ago, selling and reinvesting, says Korman. His other complaint is that most part-time residents of Bodrum don’t pay taxes there and that many of the restaurant and club owners don’t leave their money in Bodrum but take it back to Istanbul.

But, by far his biggest complaints are in the aesthetic realm. “All the desperate housewives without education are making terrible decorations. I think it’s ridiculous,” says Korman. Many of the large Bodrum homes and mansions of the people he is referring to the are apparently featured regularly in stylish home décor magazines and Turkish newspapers. “They are so proud. But what they are building in Bodrum are no more than gaudy villas out of Mexican soap operas. They think they are so great but really it’s terrible,” says Korman. “There are some exceptions of course,” Korman allows. “I am only talking about the average and the architects with bad taste. They killed some of the towns. They killed, the nature and character of Bodrum,” he says. There is also an astounding hypocrisy among the nouveau riche explains Korman because many of them are in fact educated and have travelled to places like Tuscany and Greece. His biggest lament is that the nouveau riche of Turkey do not learn from these places, where the original regional character is well preserved despite the influx of tourists and real estate development over the past several decades. “They should know what makes those places special. But they don’t. Their only goal is to compete with each other for the largest, most ostentatious homes. They may appear to enjoy the places they visit outside Turkey and understand these old authentic places, but they have not translated this to Bodrum. Even the filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci’s house, which I saw in person, is not a mansion,” says Korman.

When asked which Bodrum towns offend him the most these days he replied by saying he hasn’t been to Göltürkbükü in three or four years. In Korman’s view, some offenders are worse than others. “There is another segment of the population in Bodrum, of course -the young hedonist- they are not bad except for the noise pollution they create. It’s such a silly town. In summer, above all, it’s a place of tragic opposition,” he says.

Korman first began visiting Bodrum in the mid 1960s and built his own home -a spectacular stone edifice constructed from the remains of a centuries old Greek house- in the early 80s. He says he knew he wanted to move to Bodrum as soon as he saw it for the first time. His home, located just above the city of Bodrum near the Antique Theatre, has an enchanting garden, a cozy stone terrace and spectacular view of the bay. Korman was initially attracted to Bodrum because of its Greco-Turk, hybrid culture and relatively liberal way of life. He says it was a very cosmopolitan place because of this cultural mix and that it was reflected in everything, from the architecture, to the cuisine to the way people dressed. “Bodrum was complete the way it was. When the artists and intellectuals arrived from the cities they easily blended in. It was a nice place to live. I wish Bodrum could have developed more naturally. But now nothing is left,” says Korman. On a more positive note, Korman adds “The water is still clean and still there are some good old fellows around here in the winter.”

Korman spends about six to eight months at his home in Bodrum with his family. He also has a special appreciation for old boats and owns a genuine 25-year-old wooden gulet (Turkish style yacht) aboard which he enjoys spending the months of July and August, when it’s busiest in Bodrum. “People don’t even respect those. They come here in these big white motor boats I like to call yogurt cups,” says Korman.

Korman, who studied architecture at METU, never practiced the profession though he has an avid interest in all things architectural. He joined an advertising agency instead, which he eventually headed up. Since 1993 Korman has been semi-retired and likes to collect paintings and Ottoman calligraphy in his spare time. He still does consulting work for media companies and some of his former advertising accounts. Korman is married with two children who virtually grew up in Bodrum. One currently lives in New York City and the other graduated from Harvard University and now lives in London. He also has a cat in Istanbul named Çıtır (small fry) and a dog named Kestane (chestnut) who lives in Bodrum.

When asked to name some of his favorite restaurants in Bodrum, Korman said it’s very difficult to find good food and that many places are overrated and overpriced. He made me promise not to write about his personal favorites because the one time he did tell a journalist about the “truly good” restaurants in Bodrum, they became crowded with trendy people and are now ruined.

Despite his harsh words against a certain group of people and his sadness about what has become of Bodrum, Korman still spends a lot of time at his home there and says he’s very proud of it. “The most important aspects of Bodrum are light and time. The light in Bodrum is like nowhere else and using time was very different in Bodrum in the early days compared to now. The main idea is to become a part of nature when you are in Bodrum,” says Korman. One of his favorite past-times is spending time in the garden and doing much of the gardening work himself. “I’m not snubbing Bodrum. I’m just very sorry about what happened to it,” he says.

by Stacie Leone
Photos by Bennu Gerede

BODRUM The Guide