The Beylerbeyi Palace (Turkish: Beylerbeyi Saray, Beylerbeyi meaning "Lord of Lords") is located in the Beylerbeyi neighbourhood of Istanbul, Turkey at the Asian side of the Bosphorus. An Imperial Ottoman summer residence built in the 1860s, it is now situated immediately north of the 1973 Bosphorus Bridge .
Beylerbeyi Palace was commissioned by Sultan Abdlaziz (1830–1876) and built between 1861 and 1865 as a summer residence and a place to entertain visiting heads of state. Empress Eugnie of France visited Beylerbeyi on her way to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and had her face slapped by the sultan's mother for daring to enter the palace on the arm of Abdlaziz. (Despite her initial reception, Empress Eugnie of France was so delighted by the elegance of the palace that she had a copy of the window in the guest room made for her bedroom in Tuileries Palace, in Paris.) Other regal visitors to the palace included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The palace was the last place of captivity of the deposed sultan Abdulhamid II from 1912 until his death there in 1918.
The palace looks its most attractive from the Bosphorus, from where its two bathing pavilions, one for the harem (women's only) and the other for the selamlik (men's only), can best be seen. One of the most attractive rooms is the reception hall, which has a pool and fountain. Running water was popular in Ottoman houses for its pleasant sound and cooling effect in the heat.
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