A conversation with Hikmet Şükrü Ertangün, founder of Standart Consultancy — on the invisible order behind high-value private residences.
1. Let’s start at the beginning. What is Standart Consultancy? What does Hikmet Ertangün actually do?
Let me put it this way. Behind every superhero there is someone you never see. Tony Stark has Jarvis; Batman has Alfred. They don’t wear the cape — but when the lights go out, they are the ones who keep everything working.
We are the ones in the background who quietly build the system. No cape.
The difference is this: our clients lead demanding lives, and when they come home they want one thing — everything in its place. The pool at the right chemistry, the generator serviced, the kitchen ready, the staff calm. They come to us to be free of the disorder that grows when a home, its pool, its maintenance and several assets are run without any system behind them.
Standart Consultancy is the structure that builds and operates that quiet order behind high-value private residences. I am not the hero; I am the person who keeps the home working, quietly. And Standart Consultancy is a new category that institutionalises that work — quietly, and with full transparency.
2. When people hear “villa management,” most picture a gardener and a pool technician. Where does what you do differ from that?
Not people. A system.
The gardener and the pool technician are valuable — but when a home is entrusted to individuals, it leaves with those individuals. We install an operating discipline into the home: inspection routines, a preventive-maintenance calendar, vendor standards, inventory, reporting. Staff can change, vendors can change; the order remains.
Our measure is simple: if the home runs flawlessly even when we are nowhere to be seen, the work has been set up correctly. We never need to appear.
3. At what moment do owners usually call you?
In truth, we want to change that question.
Today, people usually call after a moment of crisis. But we are speaking to those who do not yet know whom to call — who only sense that they have a need. What we are building is not last-minute intervention; it is the capacity to foresee problems before they appear.
Those crisis moments are, in fact, the shortest part of the film. The pool attendant who, in the middle of August — the fullest week of the season — asks for a raise and walks off when he doesn’t get it. The chef who resigns two days before an important dinner. A guest once told me he was describing to his therapist not his work, but the fact that his home would never fall into order — a place meant for peace had become a source of worry.
All of it is a symptom of the same problem: the home rests not on a system, but on individuals improvising day to day. Our value lies not in the moment of crisis, but in seeing and closing the gaps that make the crisis possible in the first place. Standart Consultancy is both a governance structure and a system that inspects risks before they even become symptoms.
4. Your glossary uses a term — “residence memory.” Can a home have a memory?
It can — and in most homes, this is exactly what is missing.
Yes, “residence memory” and “residence governance” are English terms — the kind that travel with brands like Aman and Amanruya, Six Senses, Bvlgari; words that are not hard to learn or to make one’s own. But for us, what matters is not the name — it is the substance.
And the substance is this: where the main water valve is, when the generator was last serviced, which firm built this pool and when its warranty ended, which vendor is reliable for which job, even a guest’s pillow preference. In most homes, this knowledge lives in one employee’s head. When that person leaves, the home loses its memory, and everything is learned again from zero — by trial and error, spending from the owner’s comfort.
We record everything: every fault, every service, every preference. Staff change; the home does not forget.
At Standart Consultancy, our people are supported; they are not forced to constantly prove their worth by making themselves visible. But at the same time, no one is indispensable. Myself included.
5. So how does all this work stay “invisible” while the owner or guests are in the home?
The principle is simple: good service does not try to show that it is being done; its result is felt.
But beneath that result lies very fine knowledge. Which fabric softener is used, whether the sheets are Frette, whether the bath is Aesop or another selection. Once this order is established, the Standart Operating System takes over: people become able to do their work unseen — and their effort is not overlooked.
No visible work is carried out while a guest is actively using a space. Greetings are brief and appropriate to the hour. Nothing is explained unless asked, and no space is intruded upon. The guest notices only this: the towels are always fresh, the pool always clear, dinner always on time.
They never have to think about how. And if they do have to think about it, then we are not doing our job well.
6. There is also the matter of money. Vendors, maintenance, purchases. Why should an owner hand that control to you?
They shouldn’t hand it over — they should see it. Our audience has Family Offices, Account and Treasury Management officers as a “habitus”.
In our model, every job is in writing: scope, date, cost, exclusions, responsible party. Each month the owner sees, in a single report, what was done, what it cost, and what comes next.
We call this the owner having visibility without involvement: the owner does not deal with operations, yet nothing falls outside their line of sight. Trust is not built on words; it is built on records.
Standart Consultancy runs every transaction transparently, through its own system. That is where its strength comes from: it is trusted because it can offer the same honesty and the same transparency to everyone — to the Principal and to the vendor alike, at the same time.
7. This is, to a large degree, a business of trust. A manager with access to the keys, the information, the spending of a home — in the wrong hands, what does that become?
That is the most important question.
Those who have seen Django will remember Stephen: the house manager close enough to whisper in the owner’s ear, holding all the power and knowledge of the house — and yet corrupt in character. When such a person is in place, the consequences are bad too, and usually quiet. Pool pumps that “mysteriously” keep failing, work needlessly inflated, flies that never seem to end — much of it is his doing. You can find your “Stephen” always around your wealth.
To give someone full access to a home — the keys, the information, the spending — is, in truth, to give someone access to your life. If that access is not carried with the right character, the most powerful person in the home becomes its greatest risk.
That is why Standart is built on a single foundation: right character and full transparency. What happens inside the home is not discussed outside it. Photographs, location, social media — forbidden; permission is not even requested. Mistakes and damage are not hidden; they are reported on time. Every expense leaves a written trace.
For us, character is not a hiring criterion. It is the system itself.
8. If the owner of a high-value residence called you tomorrow, what would the first week look like?
Not promises. An assessment. A solid inspection with no comments.
Our first task is to inspect the residence from end to end: security, electrical, water, pool, climate control, technical equipment, staffing structure, inventory, vendors, and existing maintenance contracts. We look not only at faults, but at risks that have not yet become faults.
At the end of the inspection we give the owner a short, clear executive summary: matters requiring immediate action, matters to be addressed in the near term, opportunities for improvement, estimated costs, and responsible parties. For the first time, the owner sees the true condition of the residence within a single frame.
By the end of that first week, not everything will be solved — but nothing is uncertain any longer. What is safe, what carries risk, what still depends on individuals, and which systems need to be built: all of it is clear.
And that is exactly where our work begins: making the residence function not through day-saving interventions, but through inspection, preventive maintenance, records and standards. Because in a well-run home, results do not appear out of a hat. Behind them stands a system — invisible, and complete.
9. Throughout this conversation you have kept your distance from the phrase “villa management.” What category are you really trying to build?
“Villa” is more of an architectural or commercial definition. Its size, its character and its operating needs vary from country to country, even from person to person. What interests us is not the name of the structure, but the operational capacity it carries.
Let us say it plainly from the outset: we want to distinguish ourselves clearly — both from “villa or estate-complex management” and from the “real-estate advisory” market. It will take time — but the right kind of work grows quickly. Turkey is passing through the conversion of a growing construction sector into “branded residences.” When these homes are bought, the work does not end; it begins. That is where we position ourselves, patiently.
Above a certain scale, a private residence functions like a small enterprise — with its staff, chefs, technical teams, procurement, security, pool, vehicles, guests and budget. And this enterprise represents not only the owner’s assets, but their way of life, their privacy, and their family’s habits.
For this reason, the classic estate-complex or property-management approach is not enough. When a residence is sold, the process is not complete; the real operating responsibility begins that day. In Turkey, we want to rebuild the category of Estate Manager and Residence Governance on this understanding: an independent management discipline that does not merely protect the residence, but runs its people, its knowledge, its budget, its standards and its living culture within one system.
We describe this structure as a four-cornered model. At one corner of the square stands the Principal — the owner. At the second stands the Family Office, supporting the owner’s assets and decisions. At the third, as independent estate manager, stand Hikmet Ertangün and Standart Consultancy; at the fourth, the team working within the residence. At the centre is the residence. Final decision and authority always belong to the Principal.
The owner lives the peace of their home, quietly. Some decisions they state openly; others are understood from family traditions, a way of life and preferences formed over years. Standart Consultancy’s task is not merely to carry out instructions; it is to read the living culture of the Principal and their family with care, to free it from arbitrary interpretation, and to turn it into a sustainable operating system.
How a guest is received, how the table is set, how privacy is protected, when the staff become visible and when they withdraw — these cease, over time, to depend on the memory of individual employees. They become recorded, teachable, continuous house traditions. So that even when staff change, the character of the home does not.
The authority of these four corners is not identical; but each is bound to the centre by an open, defined and accountable relationship. The ninety-degree angles between the corners are not accidental: they express that the roles do not blur into one another, that no party seizes another’s authority, and that no conflict of interest forms.
The four sides of the square are all operating disciplines: inspection and risk control; operations, preventive maintenance, SOPs and residence manuals; transparent procurement, budget control and accountable reporting; compliance with regulation, safety standards, guest use and — where it exists — the rental-pool model.
Standart Consultancy takes the place of none of these corners. It holds the corners at the right distance, builds the flow of information between them, and keeps the whole structure working in line with the Principal’s will.
Those who see four separate points see a scattered residence operation. Those who see the system between the four points see a working square. Our work is to build that square.
A note of thanks. The idea of turning private-residence operation into a discipline — into a teachable profession — was defined, codified and raised to a standard somewhere. We thank the pioneers who made this category visible in North America: Nines (ninesliving.com) and its founders, Mohamed Elzomor and Jacco de Bruijn. We are working to carry that understanding into the particular conditions of Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean.
— An interview published in European Family Offices Magazine.
Hikmet Şükrü Ertangün is the founder of Standart Consultancy. He began his career in public security and international assignments, then moved — through a demanding five-year passage in luxury hospitality — into the operation of high-value private residences. Today his focus is simple: to rest a residence not on individuals but on a system — through inspection, preventive maintenance, vendor control, residence memory and transparent reporting. In Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean, he is building an independent, owner-side discipline of Estate Management and Residence Governance.
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