Why Does an Ostensibly Wooden Mansion Conceal a Masonry Core?

When the Ragıp Paşa Mansion in Caddebostan, situated in the Kadıköy district on the Asian shore, was placed on the market, Seyhan Akıncı solicited my historical analysis of the edifice for Milliyet Pazar. Erected between 1906 and 1907, in the twilight of Abdülhamid II’s reign, the structure was conceived in the tradition of a waterfront yalı, poised directly at the water’s edge. Its architect was August Jasmund, the very designer of Sirkeci Station.

It may be interpreted as a majestic iteration of the Victorian country residence, a typology we are accustomed to encountering in wood around Bağdat Caddesi, colloquially known as the “Erenköy mansions”, which grow increasingly scarce with each passing year. Yet there is a fundamental discrepancy: the mansion, despite its timbered guise, is constructed entirely of masonry, with the wood serving as a mere veneer. It is surmised that the facade was sheathed in timber because brickwork could not readily accommodate the intricate ornamental programme desired by the patron.

Because Abdülhamid II insisted on retaining his chamberlain, Ragıp Paşa, in constant proximity, the pasha could retire to his mansion but once a fortnight. His propensity for monumental architecture is also immortalised in the imposing Anadolu and Rumeli hans on İstiklal Caddesi. Equally notable was his brother Arif Paşa, the sultan’s physician, who lent his name to the most voluminous historic apartment block in Elmadağ and to a grand residence in Moda. The article further notes that, according to official archives, the twenty-seven-dönüm estate cost forty thousand gold coins.

Why, then, is it dubbed the Haunted Mansion?

For decades the edifice, recessed considerably from the landward thoroughfare, languished in visual obscurity. When a coastal promenade was inaugurated upon the reclaimed land before it in the mid-1980s, pedestrians suddenly found themselves confronting a colossal structure in a state of abandonment. The spectral moniker owes much to this abrupt visual encounter. Paradoxically, the very embankment that severed the mansion from the sea served to expose it to the public gaze. The exhaustive narrative, alongside its alternative appellations such as “Little Dolmabahçe” and “Saray Yavrusu” (a palace in miniature), is chronicled in Milliyet Pazar.