Phoenicia Hotel Beirut

History

The Phoenicia was built by the Lebanese businessman Najib Salha, who founded La Société des Grands Hotels du Liban (SGHL) in 1953. It was designed by the noted American architect Edward Durell Stone, working with American architect Joseph Salerno and local architects Ferdinand Dagher and Rodolphe Elias. The design showed Levantine influences in its high ceilings, sweeping staircases and palatial pillars. The hotel's interiors and furniture were contracted to the New York firm of William M. Ballard and were designed by Neal Prince, who was responsible for the interior decoration of most Intercontinental Hotels at the time.

The hotel opened to the public on December 23, 1961 as the Phoenicia Intercontinental, managed by the American Intercontinental Hotels chain. However its grand opening was not celebrated until three months later, on March 31, 1962, when Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony and actress Dorothy Dandridge sang in the Le Paon Rouge nightclub as the guest of honor. The hotel had 310 rooms and suites, shops, restaurants and a swimming pool with a bar.

The hotel was an immediate success, operating at near constant 100 percent occupancy. As a result, plans were made to expand it. An adjacent property was purchased by SGHL in 1963. Local architect Joseph Philippe Karam was commissioned to design a 22-story, 270-room addition, which opened on April 19, 1968, increasing the number of rooms at the hotel to 600.

The hotel became a battlefield in the Lebanese Civil War in 1975-6, during fighting known as the Battle of the Hotels, and was left a burnt-out ruin. It was abandoned for nearly twenty-five years until the late 1990s, when Mazen and Marwan Salha, Najib Salha's sons and members of the board of directors of SGHL, decided to restore the hotel.

It reopened on March 22, 2000 as the Phoenicia InterContinental Beirut, following a $100 million restoration project to designs by architects Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum. In July 2003, a third tower, the Phoenicia Residence, consisting of 35 luxury apartments, was opened. The Phoenicia was damaged in the 2005 bombing assassination of Rafik Hariri in the street out front and closed for three months for repairs. In 2011, it underwent a US $50 million revamp that coincided with its 50-year anniversary. In 2012 it was rebranded as the Phoenicia Hotel Beirut, though it is still a part of the InterContinental chain.

Art Collection

When the Phoenicia celebrated its 50th anniversary, it revealed a collection of contemporary art, featuring works of Howard Hodgkin, Sam Francis, Jan Dibbets, Andy Goldsworthy, Paul Morrison and a Mud Circle by Richard Long.

In film

As a Beirut landmark, the Phoenicia has appeared in numerous feature movies across its history. It is featured in the 1965 Mickey Rooney film Twenty-Four Hours to Kill. In Agent 505: Death Trap in Beirut (1966), the hero stays in the city’s glamorous palace. In Die Fälschung (1981) (English title: Circle of Deceit), Volker Schlöndorff makes an ambiguous use of the Phoenicia. Characters seem to be lodging in the hotel while it has already been damaged by the war. In fact, the outside scenes were shot on location, while the interior scenes were done at Casino du Liban. Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s Je veux voir (English title: I want to see) (2008), starts on the last floor of the Phoenicia: Catherine Deneuve says she wants to see the destruction of the 2006 Lebanon War.