Inside Faqra – Luxury Private Chalets

Description

LebanonPostcard presents the Book: Inside Faqra – Luxury Private Chalets by Hani Samaha
Photography: Albert Saikaly – Text copyright: Jean and Hani Samaha – 33 x 25.5 x 3.5 cm
Hard and Box Cover – 273 pages – 2650 grs

Explore the best-kept secret of the Keserouane Mountains. Discover the intriguing glass chalets or pine, steel or rock facades where access anywhere near them is restricted to the most privileged few.

“Inside Faqra, Luxury Private Chalets” grants you for the first time that same unique privilege. Nineteen beautifully illustrated chapters reveal the exclusive residential avenues of the private resort Faqra Club.

Hani Samaha brings you a range of architectural styles and superbly appointed interiors, taking you up-close and personal to the fabulous world of Lebanese financial celebrities. From Norwegian inspired chalets nestling in a woodland copse to cascading concrete prisms bolted to the mountainside; from medieval-styled halls echoing a magnificent past to avant-garde exteriors proclaiming a dynamic era – affluence is consistently accompanied by mature design appreciation. The sheer brilliance of these perfectly executed homes and their polished, luxurious decoration will leave you utterly breathless.

“Inside Faqra, Luxury Private Chalets” is the third book by Hani Samaha on the extraordinary private residences enjoyed by Beirut’s elite society. Samaha was given a once in a lifetime opportunity to record these ultra-exclusive, luxurious weekend retreats, with unrivalled access to the interior world of the Middle East’s most distinguished skiing destination.

Each chalet has a distinct personality, as varied in its conception and execution as the business tycoons who built them.

The book’s pages journey across the implacable Faqra Mountains in search of idyllic representations of a luxury retreat. Their fantastic architectural forms are rendered in various guises, from the snowy-white velvet of a winter’s mantle to the stark precision of a brilliant cloudless sky, or the mystic elegance of a spectacular silhouette against the oriental twilight.

There are chalets that were constructed in glass and concrete, celebrations throughout absolute modernity, there are chalets with internal vistas that match the priceless views of the landscape outside their secluded walls. Some are the size of castles, with impenetrable walls and heraldic interiors; others were built of wood, superb replicas of a traditional Swiss home.

“Inside Faqra, Luxury Private Chalets” is the first book ever published about the uncompromisingly design-driven chalets, within this famous resort.