Inside the 26-storey hotel in capital city that’s been left to rot | World | News
Once the pinnacle of luxury in Beirut, the Holiday Inn was a gleaming symbol of modernity and prosperity when it opened its doors in 1974. With 400 rooms, 26 floors, and the Middle East‘s first rotating rooftop restaurant, the hotel quickly became a jewel of Lebanon‘s hospitality scene, with 360-degree views of the Mediterranean Sea and a prime location in the heart of the capital’s vibrant downtown. Just one year later, however, the glamorous landmark became a war zone and it has stood as a bullet-ridden skeleton ever since.
The Holiday Inn Beirut was designed by renowned French architect André Wogenscky, in collaboration with Lebanese architect Maurice Hindié, and was part of a broader mixed-use development known as the St Charles City Center. With upscale shops, a cinema, offices, and a nightclub on the 25th floor, the hotel promised a new era of tourism and business in Lebanon.
That promise came to a violent halt in 1975, when the Lebanese Civil War erupted. Within months, the hotel found itself at the center of a deadly conflict.
Its towering structure also became a strategic stronghold in what became infamously known as the Battle of the Hotels, a brutal series of clashes in Beirut’s luxury hotel district at the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. Rival militias fought fiercely for control of the area’s high-rise buildings, turning them into battlegrounds and sniper nests.
Over 25,000 fighters from opposing militias, including Christian and pro-Palestinian factions, clashed in the area, vying for control of the hotel district that symbolised wealth, power, and visibility.
The Holiday Inn, with its panoramic views and central location, became a heavily contested site, and became a famed sniper’s nest. More than 1,000 people were killed as a result, with some victims reportedly thrown from the rooftop of the hotel.
The battle raged from October 1975 to March 1976, leaving the hotel a devastated shell, its walls shredded by bullets, and its rooms gutted by explosions.
The violence didn’t end there. The site was again engulfed in conflict, this time during the Lebanon War in 1982, as Al-Mourabitoun and Amal militias turned the ruined tower into a battleground once more.
One half of the hotel is owned by Compagnie Immobilière Libanaise, a Lebanese firm pushing for its transformation into upscale condominiums. The other half belongs to a Kuwaiti investment group that envisions demolishing the structure entirely to make way for a new high-rise development.
This unresolved dispute has left the building in a state of legal and physical limbo. Due to its highly strategic position in the city center, the Holiday Inn and the surrounding grounds have been classified as a military zone, now under the strict control of the Lebanese Army.
