The formation of traditional Antalya houses is based on the following principles: loyalty to the nature and the environment, sincerity, frankness, flexibility and practicality, and an emphasis on function rather than style. The design concept and layout of the rooms and their placement within the building all conform to the identity of the traditional Turkish house.

Antalya summers are very hot and winters are mild. The main objective in the houses is to avoid the heat, rather than the cold, and to provide cool air. To benefit from the gentle breeze that wafts from sea to land during the day and from land to sea during the evenings is the pride of a traditional Antalya house and a topic of daily conversation. For this reason shadowy taşlık, high ceilinged rooms and courtyards are specific features of the Kaleiçi houses.

Generally the houses are two-stories high with an exterior sofa layout. The ground floor is usually built with brick and stone while the upper floor has a timber construction. Façades are usually decorated with foliates, flowers, the crescent and star, leaves, rosettes, and other motifs executed in plaster and paint as well as scripts of “Allah” and “Mashallah” (“may Allah protect”) phrases. A double-winged gate or a wooden door opens sometimes directly to the taşlık. The garden is enclosed for privacy by high walls and tall trees, which also provide much shade during daytime. Usually due to the suitability of the climate, service rooms such as the kitchen, laundry, storage rooms, cellars, and stables are located on the ground floor. Thus, such services do not really affect the planning of the house itself. All the gardens have a cistern-well with a stone curb, which at the same time was used as a refrigerator where food was suspended in a basket. The canals along the streets and running parallel to the houses were diverted to each house for watering the gardens.

Part of the garden extending beneath the house is called the taşlık, i.e. a paved courtyard. This is an indispensable part of Antalya houses and daily life usually passed at the taşlık downstairs or the hayat upstairs. The courtyard’s floor is paved with pebbles set into the lime mortar creating floral or geometric mosaics, in a millennia-old tradition. This richly decorated floor also stays damp all day providing coolness.

Wooden stairs lead from the paved courtyard to the upper floor, and at the center is a landing opening to a middle floor. The rooms of the middle floor have low ceilings and small windows and function as larders.

At the top of the stairs is a semi-covered area called a hayat or sofa, furnished with seats and a wash sink. The hayat where most of the household production activity takes place is the focus and gathering area of an Antalya House. The main floor of the house is this upper floor. The ground floors of houses are usually of irregular shaped due to the plots; however, this shaped is rectified on the upper floor by placing many bay windows or balconies. These bay windows and balconies prevent monotony and enliven and animate the streets.

On the upper floor are rooms, which are carefully planned for the comfort of the private lives of the family members and which open onto the hayat or sofa. The biggest and best-furnished room (başoda) is spared for the head of the house. This room is furnished with many items that identify the room, such as a wooden hooded fireplace flanked with cabinets with carved shutters for holding the bedding, shelves placed high on the walls and many other cupboards named after their functions like testilik (for the jugs), peşkirlik (for the towels), lambalık (for the lamps), fincanlık (for the cups) and kavukluk (for the headgear) as well as wooden ceiling decorated with wood-strips and carved medallion in the middle.

Along the main windows and along the side walls are ottomans and divans, which were used by the women of the house to look out into the street and also received their guests. The floors were covered with colorful rugs and kilims to serve for various needs during the day.

Beginning in the eighteenth century the Baroque and Rococo styles of the West influenced especially the interior design and decoration in Turkish art. Within a very short time, the influence spread from Istanbul to Anatolia and reflected on the walls of the mansions with landscapes and panels of fruit and flower arrangements. Especially scenes from Istanbul and other imaginary landscapes drawn as if looking through a window with curtains, once very popular examples, can now be found only in a few houses in Kaleiçi, displaying the wealth of their owners.