Travel Weekly - July 27, 2009

At ground level, the open-air lounge under the three Club floors rotates with the rooms.

At Marmara Antalya in Turkey, a new spin on hotels

The Loft at the Marmara Antalya, housing the hotel’s 24 Club rooms, can rotate a full 360 degrees. The building completes a rotation every four hours.

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LUXURY

TRAVEL

By Nadine Godwin

T W PHO TO B Y NADINE GOD WIN

Guests at the Marmara Antalya hotel in Antalya, Turkey, can while away a lot of time trying to see nearby buildings move past their room’s broad windows. I know I did. The five-star property, which de- buted in 2005 on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, comprises two buildings, one a
four-story circular tower that is constantly revolving.

Tuna, who was until recently
marketing and sales director for
the group.

Called the Loft, it is capable of rotating a full 360 degrees in two to 22 hours. The fastest speeds can be uncomfortable for guests, so the motion is set at four hours per rotation.

This small, moving tower, which houses the hotel’s 24 Club rooms, is just one reflection of Marmara Hotels & Residences’ determination to ensure its properties are “not boring,” said Arzu

The Club rooms, eight each on three levels, are slightly wedge-shaped. The bed, with its simple, white color scheme, sits in the middle of the room. A bathtub and two sinks abut the wall behind it, and a desk/dressing table serves as the headboard. There are an opaque-glass-enclosed water closet and a separate shower.

A small sitting space is backed by the room’s only large patch of color, a wall that is startlingly pink. The windows arc from end to end on the room’s exterior wall, the better to watch the world go by.

At ground level, the open-air lounge under the three Club floors rotates with the rooms. The 2,750-ton building, designed by Turkish engineers informed by shipbuilding techniques, extends three levels into the ground and floats in 478 tons of water.

By comparison, the exterior of the other

Marmara Antalya building, with 208 rooms, is nondescript. But on the inside, there are splashes of color all over the place

(lots more deep
pink), and the art is whimsical.
Rooms in the larger building
are brightly painted and edgy.
The ceilings are raw concrete.

Entry is at reception on the seventh floor, but the piece de resistance, one floor below, is the gargantuan lobby/restaurant/rec-reation area.

Called Marmara Tuti, it is designed for a wide range of activities in a single “living area.” At nearly 13,500 square feet, Tuti occupies the entire sixth floor and is faced on three sides by two-story windows.

Aside from tables, seating and even a bed, the space accommodates mealtime buffets, a bar, a billiard table, a rock-climbing column, an art exhibit, a library, swings for children of all ages, a

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free cybercafe and a graffiti column where guests can leave notes.

Tuti is loaded with classy touches such as white couches and floor-to-ceiling displays of liquor bottles, library books and kitchen paraphernalia. It is particularly stunning in the late-day sun.

However, this setup means in-hotel dining is in a community room. For those who want something more discreet, the great consolation is off-site dining in Antalya, a resort city well supplied with fine choices.

Some of Antalya’s restaurants are a few minutes’ ride from the Marmara in a pleasant downtown that, from its cliffside perch, overlooks a charming harbor scene.

The Marmara sits on a cliff, too, and mountains provide a distant backdrop in three directions.

Tuti’s windows, a large pool and manicured gardens face the Mediterranean. A private beach and its bar, below a rocky cliff, are accessible by elevator. Here, guests can scuba dive as well as swim and sunbathe.

Other activities include kayaking on the property’s man-made, 325-yard Crazy River, April through October; skiing in the Taurus Mountains as late as April; and sightseeing in a country loaded with ancient sites. Aspendos and Perge are close enough for a day trip.

A private beach and its bar, below a rocky cliff, are accessible by elevator.

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Finally, the Marmara offers a good-sized gym and spa treatments. This is Turkey, so options include the hammam experience —

steam baths, a cleansing scrub and massage — in a beautifully tiled facility. The hammam, on the fifth floor, is co-ed, and the attendants are male.

The remaining four belowground levels accommodate meetings spaces and garages.

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The business

The Marmara collection comprises six hotels, three residences and an event site, all owned by Turkey-based Marmara Hotels & Residences; all are in Turkey except an all-suite property in New York.