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Governors' House

Restoration of triple-arched townhouse in the Beirut

(Sir)Marc and Lady Hala Sursock Cochrane returned to Beirut after many years abroad to find and restore an old, triple-arched townhouse in the Gemmayzeh district. It may be unique in being the only surviving example of what was a modest rural home outside the city walls which over 160-odd years (dated by detailed British maps of the area in the mid 1800's) developed into a bourgeois home where all the architectural styles of the times can be identified. Marc Cochrane's father was Irish, his mother, who lives in Beirut was a daughter of the wealthy and aristocratic Levantine Sursock family whose palace still stands and is lived in by Lady Cochrane and a younger son and his wife. The story of the restoration is additionally compelling as elderly local people, interviewed in 2012, still refer to the house as the 'Governors House' a reference to the fact that it is likely to have been the residence of Fouad Pacha, Ottoman Foreign Minister, sent to pacify the Syrians. Hala Cochrane who studied Islamic Art at the American University in Beirut has dealt in antiques in Ireland and England collects Ottoman textiles. She chose the interior finishes while her husband looked after the building and restoration.