Yörük Ali Efe, one of the irregular commanders of the War of Independence, led the armed resistance against the occupying forces in Aydın, and this museum in Yenipazar is the house he lived in from his return from İzmir until his death. It has been open since 2001; his grave and a statue of him stand in the garden, the grave moved here from the Yenipazar cemetery by government decree.
The display centres on his personal belongings, given to the museum by his heirs. The other ethnographic material shown alongside them came from three sources: transfers from the collections of the Aydın Archaeological Museum, purchases on the market, and donations by members of the public.
The house on Yörük Ali Efe Avenue, thought to have been built at the end of the nineteenth century, burnt down completely in a fire in the 1980s, and afterwards the building and its garden were left to their fate; what visitors see is a reconstruction. In 1995 the culture commission of the Aydın governorship, chaired by the provincial culture director Özgen Karaca, proposed that the house be restored and brought back to life as a house museum for coming generations, and the governorship put the proposal to the Ministry of Culture.
A promise was obtained from Kayhan Kavas, on behalf of the heirs, that the property would be given to the ministry on condition that it became a house museum. A protocol between the ministry and the heirs on using the house as a museum was signed in 1997, and the property was formally assigned to the ministry in 1999. The directorate of surveys and monuments in İzmir prepared the measured drawings and the redesign and renewal projects, which were approved by the regional board for the protection of cultural and natural property. The ministry directed that the restoration be paid for out of the revenue from the archaeological sites of Aydın province, and the work was put out to tender by the provincial standing committee on 13 December 1999, to run across 1999 and 2000. A plot that had earlier been separated from the property was expropriated and taken back into the garden, and buildings and canopies added later were pulled down so that the garden returned to its original state.
The ruined building and the whole garden were then cleared, and the house was rebuilt from the foundations up according to a renewal project faithful to the original and to the principles of restoration. A second building was put up in the garden holding a ticket office, a guard's room and lavatories for visitors, and the shelter was repaired. The outbuilding known as the old almond house was repaired and turned into a country café for visitors. Stretches of garden wall that had fallen were repaired or rebuilt, and the laying out of the garden was completed. Municipal buses and Yenipazar minibuses run from central Aydın.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Aydın as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 8.2 °C in January to 28.4 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (126 mm) and lightest in August (6 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30
Getting there
- Access
- From the Efeler district of central Aydın, take a metropolitan municipality bus or a Yenipazar minibus.
