Büyükada Greek Orphanage

The Greek Orphanage on the second highest point of the island is said to be Europe’s largest wooden building and, and the second largest in the world. It was built in 1898 as a hotel called Prinkipo Palas by a French company, which also planned to run a gambling casino along Monte Carlo lines. Though, the hotel never opened as gambling was forbidden at the time by Sultan Abdülhamit II. The empty building, whose architecture is attributed to Alexandre Vallury, architect of Pera Palas Hotel, was then purchased by Eleni Zarifi, the widow of the banker Leonidas Zarifi. She donated it to the Phanar Greek Orthodox Patriarchate on the condition that it would be used as an orphanage. In the records of the period, the building is referred to as the Greek Orphanage. In 1903, the orphanage established by Patriarch Germanos 4thin a wing of the Balıklı Greek Hospital in 1853 moved to its new home on Büyükada.

The orphanage has a fully equipped theatre, a dining hall whose windows faced Sedef Island, a large library, a chapel, a games room, museum, sick bay, and fire tower with marble steps.

The orphanage, known by the inhabitants of Büyükada as the Red Palace, was run under the auspices of the Phanar Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and financed by donations from the Greek community. As the Greeks of Istanbul diminished in number, there was no longer any need for an orphanage, and it closed down in 1964.