The Beiruter

I stood in the dimly lit hallway of Nawfal Palace, watching the light pass through its tall, arched windows and fall onto the century-old tiles.

 

Outside, the city rushed on horns, heat, and humidity, but in here, time had taken a break. Somewhere between the Corinthian columns and cracked balustrades, memory had taken root. 

Stories drifted between the stones, soft as dust. The kind of stories cities forget, but buildings remember.

Nawfal Palace does not scream for attention. It hums quietly. And if you listen long enough, it will tell you what it once was, and what it still longs to be.

Today, it longs for care, not nostalgia. It needs commitment. The kind that goes beyond symbolic gestures and weekday visits. What this palace needs is structural reinforcement, funding for continuous maintenance, and a real operational vision.

We tend to place heritage on pedestals and forget that it needs to breathe. You want to preserve meaning? Keep it flexible. Make it useful.

And yet, it only remains open thanks to a handful of passionate individuals who volunteer their time to organize events and clean up its rooms. A site like this requires more than love; it needs investment.

Without institutional protection and a long-term plan, a unique piece of architecture like Nawfal risks becoming a whisper of a ghost itself, experts warn. Professor of Art at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik Habib Melki is blunt about what happens when buildings like Nawfal Palace are conserved without being integrated into city life.  

“If you don’t use it, [the building] dies,” he said. “We tend to place heritage on pedestals and forget that it needs to breathe. You want to preserve meaning? Keep it flexible. Make it useful.”

He warns against the common pitfalls in heritage work. “Corruption, shortcuts, unprofessional restoration, that’s how we lose these places,” he said. “We need a National Trust, a body that watches over historic buildings like Nawfal Palace. Right now, it’s all up to individual effort.”

A house of dreams

Built in 1890 by Qaisar Nawfal, a Greek Orthodox businessman and one of the great faces of Tripoli, the palace was once a private residence that mirrored its owner’s ambition and taste.

“He called it the ‘house of dreams,’” said Bassem Backhache, former municipal council member and engineer. “He brought in two Italian architects, imported the materials, and built it with triple arches and a garden around it … even the roof was symbolic, massive, meant to show his social standing.”

The palace’s European Tuscan architecture, from its Corinthian columns to its intricate stone ceilings, was more than just aesthetic; it was aspirational.

They didn’t have roofs like this in the 19th century; it was mostly flat. This style started in the city, not the mountains. It showed a status … a high-class status. So that’s why they put a roof type.

If it’s unique, if it has impact, it must be protected. But not just preserved, activated. Let it live. Let it mean something now.

“Even the roof tiles,” added Backhache, “they were brought from France, from Marseille. They weren’t common here. It was about status, about standing out.”

“They didn’t have roofs like this in the 19th century; it was mostly flat. This style started in the city, not the mountains. It showed a status… a high-class status. So that’s why they put a roof type,”  Melki said, emphasizing the building’s symbolism,

In his words, the architecture was never just about function, it was about impression, about the message the building sent to the city it overlooked.

But the city’s standing changed.

Ghosts in the attic

The palace lived many lives: residence, casino, restaurant, before being handed over to the municipality in 1968, with the condition that it serve as a cultural center. In 1978, it officially reopened as the Rashid Karami Municipal Cultural Center. But years of political turmoil and neglect took their toll.

“When I took over the culture committee in 2016,” said Backhache, “Nawfal Palace was in horrible shape … broken balustrades, collapsed ceilings, dust everywhere. I felt like someone had guests to their home without cleaning up first. That’s how it felt to invite people into the cultural heart of Tripoli.”

Backhache led the rehabilitation effort with the help of the United Nations Development Programme and a team of engineering students. “There was an attic that was closed off for a decade,” he said. “Just piles of forgotten papers. We wore masks, used brushes. We turned that attic into an accessible archive space.”

What they uncovered was more than old documents. It was the paper trail of a city: marriage records, Ottoman newspapers, maps, photographs. “This place is memory,” he said. “Tripoli is sick. It’s suffering. But culture is what revives a city. Without culture, we collapse.”

The quiet librarian

Inside what was once a bedroom, the public library now sits hushed, its wooden shelves lined with more than 10,000 catalogued books. Nadia Taj Al-Dine, who has worked in the palace for over a decade, knows each one by heart.

“I started working here when I was a student,” she told me, dusting the spine of a leather-bound volume. “At first, everything was by hand. I used to memorize where each book was. Now we’ve backed most of it up on the computer.”

She smiles, recalling the labor of love: classifying books, attending trainings, and organizing events. “We have Ottoman archives from 1666 to 1900, rare books you won’t find anywhere else. Students come to study, researchers come to dig into history. It’s all here.”

But it isn’t just about the books. It’s the act of holding space for people to learn. “Even those who can’t afford cafés or study spaces come here,” said Backhache. “It’s free. They sit, read, and think. Culture isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

Stone that breathes

From the upstairs balcony, the city unfolds like a memory. The old municipality building, Cinema Opera, also once Nawfal’s property and now in need of $200,000 in repairs, stands like a faded cousin of a forgotten empire. “Nawfal used to sit here and smoke shisha,” said Fouad Traboulsi, the palace’s manager and cultural advisor since 2016. “He watched over Tal, the cultural and intellectual center of Tripoli.”

Tal was once alive with salons, debates, and cinemas. “People think of Tal as a place to pass through now,” Traboulsi added, “but back then, it was the beating heart of Tripoli’s cultural life. Nawfal Palace was the crown jewel.”

Traboulsi keeps the building running despite budget constraints. “We open from 8 A.M. to 1 P.M. Monday to Thursday,” he explained. “We’re hoping to expand to the afternoons soon. The area isn’t always safe, but we want more people to come. Culture should be for everyone.”

The fragile link

In the main hall, a photograph of Nawfal Palace as it stood in the 1890s sits behind glass. The newly built structure rises with quiet pride, facing the city’s main public garden, with the Tal clock still standing in the distance. Nearby, yellowed newspapers from 1913 lie on display, brittle but intact. 

I wondered if those who built it ever imagined that, more than a century later, we would be trying to keep this place alive, not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity.

“The new generation doesn’t know Nawfal,” Backhache said. “But the old ones remember. When I hear the name, I go back in time.”

The new generation doesn’t know Nawfal. But the old ones remember. When I hear the name, I go back in time.

Stone can’t speak, but it can hold memory.

In Nawfal Palace, memory lingers like light on old wood, like shisha smoke on a summer evening. You don’t just walk through it, you listen.

Because some buildings aren’t just architecture. They’re testimonies. And if Tripoli has any hope of finding itself again, it will be through the places that never forgot what this city once was. 

Melki believes Nawfal Palace can still anchor Tripoli’s fractured identity. “If it’s unique, if it has impact, it must be protected. But not just preserved, activated. Let it live. Let it mean something now.”