The Hotel St. Georges is a historic resort hotel in
Beirut, Lebanon
Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...
, opened in 1934. It was constructed by a French investment group, the Société Des Grands Hotels Du Levant (SGHL),
during the period of the
French mandate
The Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (; , also referred to as the Levant States; 1923−1946) was a League of Nations mandate founded in the aftermath of the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, concerning the territori ...
.
Parisian architect
Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret (12 February 1874 – 25 February 1954) was a French architect and a pioneer of the architectural use of reinforced concrete. His major works include the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the first Art Deco building in Paris; the C ...
came to Beirut to design the hotel with local architect Antun Tabet.
Local businessman Abdallah El-Khoury, along with several partners, bought the SGHL in 1958. El-Khoury died in 1964, and his wife Nadia managed the hotel
through its heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s, when guests included
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying characters with Hedonism, hedonistic life ...
,
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Widely regarded as one of the greatest cinema actors of the 20th century,''Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia'' ,
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an English and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 19 ...
,
Richard Burton
Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor.
Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memor ...
, King
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal (14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 1952 until Death and state funeral of King Hussein, his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemites, Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hu ...
, the
Shah of Iran
The monarchs of Iran ruled for over two and a half millennia, beginning as early as the 7th century BC and enduring until the 20th century AD. The earliest Iranian king is generally considered to have been either Deioces of the Median dynasty () ...
and his wife
Princess Soraya, as well as spies from both sides in the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, like
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secr ...
, who frequented its famous bar.
The hotel closed in 1975, as a result of the
Lebanese Civil War
The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
The religious diversity of the ...
. It was one of the main sites of the infamous
Battle of the Hotels
The Battle of the Hotels (, ''Maʿrakah al-Fanādiq'') was a subconflict within the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War that occurred in the Minet-el-Hosn hotel district of downtown Beirut. This area was one of the first major battles of ...
in 1975–1976, in which opposing factions battled for control of the neighborhood's luxury hotels, which were left in ruins. It was later occupied by the Syrian army, which remained there until 1990.
Beginning in 1994, the neighboring district was rebuilt by
Solidere
Solidere s.a.l. is a Lebanese joint-stock company in charge of planning and redeveloping Beirut Central District following the conclusion, in 1990, of the Lebanese Civil War. By agreement with the government, Solidere has special powers of emi ...
, a public-private organization headed by then-Prime Minister
Rafic Hariri
Rafic Bahaa El Deen al-Hariri (; 1 November 1944 – 14 February 2005) was a Lebanese businessman and politician who served as Prime Minister of Lebanon, prime minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 to 2004.
Hariri headed fi ...
. Solidere came into conflict with owner Fady El-Khoury (son of Abdallah El-Khoury) when its adjacent Zaitunay Bay development was constructed. Solidere filled in a portion of
Saint George Bay around the hotel and constructed an enormous breakwater that blocked the hotel's marina from accessing the sea. Work to restore the hotel was stalled for many years, as El-Khouny remained locked in lawsuits with Solidere.
In 2005, El-Khoury had just begun restoration of the hotel, as well as an annex tower across the street, which was still under construction in 1975 and had remained an unfinished ruin. On 14 February 2005, Hariri was
assassinated
Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden, secret, or planned attack, of a personespecially if prominent or important. It may be prompted by political, ideological, religious, financial, or military motives.
Assassinations are orde ...
, when a bomb was detonated directly in front of the hotel. Both of the hotel's structures were severely damaged and restoration work was halted.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Hotel Saint Georges website
St George Hotel Documentary
by Philip Harrison
* Abe Books
"The Saint George Hotel Bar"
by Said K. Aburish, Published by Bloomsbury, London, (1989); ;
{{coord, 33.9023, 35.4946, display=title
Hotels in Beirut
Hotels established in 1934
Hotel buildings completed in 1934