The Turkish House was built in 1879. At that time, that part of the city was imagined as an elite district designed for the modern development of seaports, the port of Rijeka and the service and vital activities of the city.
The Turkish House is situated next to the main market in Rijeka, at the crossing of the Guiseppe Verdi Street and Vatroslava Lisinski Street. This part of Rijeka on the stretch between the theatre and the city market, which was new at the time, was made by filling up during the 19th century and was imagined as the elite part intended for the modern development of shipping, Rijeka port and service and vital operations of the city.
The house is famous under the name palace Bartolich-Gelletich-Nicolaides, according to its owner Antonija Bartolich Gelletich, the widow of the captain Tommas Gelletich, from Rijeka.
In 1891, Antonia married the Turkish and Greek consul Nikolayi Nikolai Effendi de Nicolaides who was 22 years younger than her.
The mix of Greek, Turkish and Arabian influences is the testimony to the multicultural and multiethnic Rijeka from the beginning of the 20th century. Nikolaides’s house, built in the Neo-Moorish style, is the only building of its kind in Croatia.
Rijeka was always known as the Port of Diversity, as the city open to everyone.
