In the heart of Batroun's historic souk, a stone's throw from St. Stephan's Cathedral and the ancient Phoenician sea wall, this project transformed a traditional Lebanese house into a ten-room boutique hotel — without letting it stop feeling like a house.

The restoration began with the building's original fabric: the sandstone masonry, arched openings, and generous ceiling heights that define Batroun's old quarter. Rather than concealing the marks of time, the design preserved them — exposed stone was cleaned and repointed by hand, original proportions were respected, and new interventions were kept legible and reversible, in keeping with heritage conservation principles.

Within this envelope, the program called for something the original builders never imagined: ten ensuite rooms and suites, a shared lounge, a restaurant, and a panoramic terrace. Each room takes its identity from a color of the bougainvillea that climbs Batroun's alleyways — from Chambre Blanche to Suite Corail — allowing the interiors to carry individual character while the architecture holds them together as one coherent whole. Contemporary comfort was threaded discreetly through the historic structure, so that plumbing, cooling, and lighting serve the guest without ever competing with the stone.

The result is a building that works twice: as a functioning hotel in one of Lebanon's most visited old towns, and as a piece of Batroun's heritage kept alive through use rather than preserved behind glass.