The museum is on 1st Kordon (Atatürk Street) and it was established as a house by carpet merchant Takfor between 1875 - 1880. The building was deserted by its owner on September 9th, 1922 and transferred to the ownership of the Treasury. The Turkish army who entered to İzmir used this place as headquarters. Atatürk executed his personal activities here when İzmir Economy Congress gathered on February 17th, 1923. At the end of the congress, the headquarters moved from this building and the Treasury hired out the building to Mr. Naim to be used as a hotel. When Atatürk came to İzmir on June 16th, 1926, he stayed in Naim Palas with İsmet Pasha. The building was purchased by İzmir Municipality on October 13th, 1926 and given to Atatürk as a gift with some new furniture. At his each visit to İzmir, Atatürk stayed in this house between the years 1930 - 1934. Upon death of Atatürk on November 10th, 1938, the house was transferred to his sister Makbule Baysan due to inheritance. On September 25th, 1940, İzmir Municipality expropriated the house in order to make it a museum. The museum was opened to public on September 11th, 1941, which was the 19th year of Atatürk's arrival to İzmir. The museum was renamed as "Atatürk Public Library and İzmir Atatürk Museum" on October 5th, 1962. On December 28th, 1972, the ownership of the building was given to İzmir Archaeology Museum with the letter of Undersecretariat of Culture numbered 12088. After being restored, the building was opened to visit with a ceremony on October 29th, 1978 with its new name "Atatürk and Ethnography Museum". The name of the museum was changed to "Atatürk Museum" after the ethnographic works in the museum was moved to the new Ethnography Museum established on May 13th, 1988.
It is a building in neoclassic style constructed with the mixture of Ottoman and Levantine architecture. It consists of basement, ground floor, 1st floor and roof. Its rectangle-planned backside is a brick structure covering an 852 m2 area with colonnade and courtyard. There is a corbel at 1st floor at the front side.
The base of the whole ground floor is covered with large marble plates. In the saloon, there is a 34,5 m2 Uşak carpet on the floor, there are marble statues, big crystal mirror and Atatürk bust on the left and right niches. There are excellent 19th century style fireplaces in the rooms located left and right and in the small hall. There are 2 bronze chevalier statues at the beginning of the stairs going to first floor standing as wall-light. A big Atatürk portrait is hung at the stair landing.
Atatürk's personal rooms are on the 1st floor. These rooms are as follows: Meeting room, working room, bed room, guest room, barber room, guard room, waiting - reception room, library, dining room and bathroom. There is a roulette table with green broadcloth and 12 Cosmos trademark chairs in the meeting room. Some scenes from Shekaspeare's works are animated on the porcelain plates at the back of 10 small mahogany chairs. There is a bed made of mahogany, two bedside tables, two velvet coaches, one sofa, one deck chair, one marquise and one wardrobe in the bedroom. The bedrooms are furnished according to the fashion of the period. There is a French encyclopedia in the library. In the working room there exists a working table made of oak and a writing set of Atatürk. Bronze statues, vases and oil painting pictures ornament the rooms. The floors are covered with Isparta and Uşak carpets.