Who we are...

Back in 1999, between an intense and tiring professional life and the chaos of Istanbul, we begun to imagine and dream about certain projects. What if we lived in a small place, had a garden and if moreover it was on the coast, we could raise our children by ourselves etc... Then after talking and discussing so much about these projects, we begun to believe that it was possible. With this belief, we had a trip over the whole north aegean coast from Datça til Bozcaada. Our island, at first sight, can generate two feelings: you may fall in love with it or want to leave it as soon as possible. We felt the first one, bought as soon a piece of land and began to build a small hotel for our dream to come to reality.

When we took this decision, the island was not as popular as it is nowadays, we heard a lot of things like "you will get bored to death on the island", "how will the children go to school?", and "a boutique hotel, what is it? who will come?", then with a bit of fear we got into this project, saying that "you can do this kind of things while being young and still have a chance of returning, otherwise it will remain a retirement project and be useless".

In 2002, we got the owners of a 8 rooms boutique hotel, "Bağbadem", located on the land of uncle Karvel, with its vines and almond trees. And of course our 1 and a half year old son, Alaz.

Time passing, hundreds of plants have joined the garden, trees and flowers, a small yard, chicken, turkeys and quails that children love, wooden furnitures, my husband's childhood dream, a wooden tree house. The days last 24 hours but if nobody stopped us we would have been working 25 hours. This is why I look to our garden today as man looks at his children.

Speaking about children, in 2006 a second boy joined our family. Çınar and his older brother work now in the animation team of the hotel :) They go to the small school in the center of the island and spend their free time fishing and hunting lizards and crabs. They share this art with who wants to learn it.

We welcome our hosts in this small, quiet and peaceful home, eat the products of our garden and vines as much as possible and share them with our friends. I like to be a neighbour going to her friends with artichokes flowers or a bottle of grape juice as a present, a mother collecting sea shells with her children, the lady who cooks cakes for the children of the neighbourhood, the nurse for the new born chickens, and a woman who manages to have time for herself.

Finally, the center of this story is Bozcaada, Bağbadem was our dream and we want to share as much as possible the happiness and the joy that this dream brought to us with you and have you remember your holiday with a real feeling.

Bilgütay Kaya Ergül