OPEN SEASON

Architect Raed Abillama builds a seafront home made for peace and comfort in Beirut, while offering clever nods to the local context

- Ian Phillips

When architect Raëd Abillama and his Austro-American wife Laura Braverman decided to move away from the centre of Beirut in Lebanon several years ago, their intent was quite clear. “We wanted a house that would take us on a voyage, to a place removed from the hustle and bustle of the city, from the stress and breakneck speed of Lebanese life,” he says.

The site they chose is located on a hillside in Dbayeh some 15km to the east of Beirut, which until the 1970s was largely home to orange and clementine orchards. Today, the seafront district is built-up, but the Abillamas have managed to create what equates to a serene family compound at the very heart of it. Back in the nineties, his parents built a flat-roofed modernist house on a neighbouring plot, where a flock of François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne sheep sculptures now keeps watch on the lawn by the pool. Abillama’s other immediate neighbours are two of his brothers, one of whom lives in a historical 18th-century house a few metres downslope.

One of the advantages of living in such close proximity to his relatives is that they have collective control over their immediate surroundings. “In Lebanon, that’s quite tricky to achieve,” notes Abillama. “Even in areas that are supposed to be protected, there’s often unauthorised construction.”

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