In 1977 Ayla Emiroğlu moved to Bodrum and opened a beach club in a remote bay that could only be reached by boat. A poet friend had nicknamed her Maçakızı, the Queen of Spades, and every place she opened on the peninsula carried the name. Four decades on, her family’s private villa stands on the hillside above Paradise Bay in Türkbükü, a short boat ride from the jetty of the Maçakızı hotel, with two pontoons at the foot of the garden for guests who arrive by yacht. Villa Maçakızı is now hired whole for weddings.
The Queen of Spades
The nickname came from her hair. The poet thought Ayla’s mass of dark curls looked like the upturned heart on the Queen of Spades playing card, and the name stayed with her. Maçakızı began as a simple beach club and bed and breakfast, and it drew artists, writers, poets and intellectuals to a Bodrum that, when she arrived, had only a few plain houses, a handful of cars and its stray cats. A line of hers from 1977, saying that Maçakızı was her freedom, now hangs at the entrance of Ayla, the restaurant the family named in her honour.
Her son, Sahir Erozan, made his career in Washington DC, where he created several restaurants and clubs. On a visit in the early 1990s he came back to the peninsula and began working with his mother, first on her second beach club, at Gölköy, and then on the hotel in Türkbükü, where Maçakızı moved in 2000. Under Erozan it became a boutique hotel with a collection of contemporary art. In 2019 the family added Villa Maçakızı, on Paradise Bay.
Türkbükü and the north shore
Türkbükü lies on the north coast of the Bodrum peninsula, on the opposite side from the town of Bodrum. Its harbour is well protected and ringed with high hills, and in the morning, before the afternoon breeze arrives, the water is as calm as a swimming pool. There are no broad sandy beaches here. Instead a semicircular boardwalk of restaurants, bars and sunbathing docks curves round the bay, and in high season the village draws enough Turkish pop stars, models and athletes to be called the Saint-Tropez of Turkey.
This shore has a far older connection with the sea. The ancient city of Caryanda began on an island north of Halicarnassus and later moved to the mainland, to a bay on this shore in what is now Türkbükü. Its most famous son, Scylax of Caryanda, was one of the great mariners and explorers of the ancient world and served the Persian king Darius I.
A house on the hillside
The villa climbs the slope above Paradise Bay. Terraces lead down to an infinity pool at the edge of the bay, and below them the grounds reach a private beachfront with cabanas, a timber deck at the water’s edge and the two pontoons. The building was designed by the Rome-based architect Fabrizia Frezza. It first opened shortly before the pandemic and was substantially renovated while travel was restricted, when Sahir Erozan worked with the interior designer Barbara Pensoy, setting his mother’s rustic style beside his own more contemporary taste.
Inside, arched windows and arcaded loggias open onto the gardens. The floors are laid with tiles hand painted by Italian artisans, the linen is Loro Piana and much of the furniture was made for the house. All ten rooms and suites face the sea, each with a balcony or terrace. Two Superior Rooms and two Deluxe Rooms sit alongside a Junior Suite with its own living room, three Executive Suites and two Premier Suites, where the largest terrace runs to 137 square metres. Together they sleep 20.
A wedding with the whole estate
Weddings take the entire estate: the villa, the pool, the gardens and terraces, the spa and hammam, the private beach and all ten rooms, for a minimum of three nights. Nobody else is staying, so the house, the kitchen and the staff, who provide service around the clock, are given over to one wedding party for the length of the stay.
The principal ceremony setting is a terrace and platform above Paradise Bay, with the sea behind the couple, for up to 120 guests. The team advises on the legal process for marrying in Turkey and recommends officiants for symbolic ceremonies, and couples marrying from abroad should ask about it early. Aperitivi follow on the infinity pool deck at the edge of the bay as the sun sets over the Aegean. Dinner is laid on the landscaped garden terraces that step down the hillside, for up to 100 seated, while a standing reception can take 150. The private beach serves for cocktails and swimming throughout the stay, and the villa’s own living and dining rooms hold a reception or dinner indoors.
Beyond the wedding party in the villa, most guests at a larger wedding stay elsewhere on the peninsula. The family’s hotel in Türkbükü is a short boat ride along the coast, and transfers by car or by boat can be arranged.
A Venetian in the kitchen
The kitchen is led by Carlo Bernardini, a chef from Venice trained in Italian cooking, who worked with chefs internationally before settling in Turkey. In 2009 he was made a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia. His menus follow the season and use locally sourced ingredients: Mediterranean cooking, Aegean seafood, plant-based dishes, bespoke menus, wine pairings and cocktails, with herbs from the villa’s own garden.
A wood-burning oven and a barbecue grill stand ready for long lunches and dinners outdoors, on the terraces, beside the pool or above the bay, and a wine room holds bottles chosen for the villa. For the wedding itself, Bernardini and his team plan a menu around the celebration and its theme. Couples who prefer their own caterer may bring one in.
Three nights on Paradise Bay
The minimum stay turns the wedding into a long weekend. A private spa suite offers massages and facials beside a Turkish hammam, and the fitness room, filled with natural light, looks out to sea, with personal trainers, yoga and Pilates on request. Yoga, meditation and breathwork can also be arranged on the terrace or by the water. Between the celebrations there is the pool, the beach and the bay.
Guests with a free day can cross the peninsula to Bodrum, around half an hour away, for Bodrum Castle and its Museum of Underwater Archaeology and the site of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, or spend the day at Gümüşlük or the marina at Yalıkavak.
The season, the flight and the guest list
The villa takes weddings from May to October, with the strongest demand from June to early September. Milas-Bodrum Airport, with direct summer flights from across Europe, is about 45 minutes away by road.
The decision that shapes everything else is how many guests stay with you. Twenty can sleep in the villa for the three nights and a hundred can sit down to dinner on the terraces, so the first choice is who spends the whole weekend on Paradise Bay and who joins for the wedding day. Read the Villa Maçakızı profile, open the Villa Maçakızı magazine, see weddings in Bodrum and the Edit on Six Senses Kaplankaya, and when the guest list is settled, check your date.
