Okay, the stainless steel doors do remind you of a meat locker and yes, on a late autumn afternoon like this, all scattered rain showers and lowering skies, the gunmetal grey of the curtains and walls does little to dispel the clinical chill of the entrance hall but don’t worry, once inside Raymond Bechara’s apartment, it all gets much warmer.
Perhaps it’s the LED highlighters, which can morph through a spectrum of colours but are set on hot pink as I walk into the apartment. Perhaps it’s the unmistakable undertones in Joanna Seikaly’s canvases of oversized orchids, with their echoes of Mapplethorpe and O’Keefe. Or perhaps it’s the occasional bits of erotica, ostensibly scattered casually but in fact so strategically placed that once noticed, they are difficult to ignore. Yes, you think, as you sit there on the very comfortable sofa, espresso in hand, waiting for Bechara, this is an apartment with definite personality.
Of course, I mean this in the best possible way. These beige-coloured days, a ‘personality’ is usually the last thing most people expect of their houses, preferring to leave the task of self-expression to their hair, their wardrobe or their cleavage. So let me be very clear that when I say ‘personality’, I mean that this is a house with something to say. Kudos for that go to interior decorator Sari El Khazen, who has managed to ensure that the way it is said is pleasing to the eye without offending the senses. Though clearly a sophisticated place, the apartment does not rely on bells and whistles (or for that matter acres of tapestry and gallons of gilt) to make an impression and there is nary a faux leopard print in sight. All is cool, calm and yes, just a tad effervescent.
Your first sight as you enter is of a modern white leather sofa set, a pendulous all-white version of the Retro classic Arco floor lamp and an expansive view over the port and the Bay of Beirut to the cloud-capped mountains beyond. It suggests, as it meant to do, that this is the apartment of a man who appreciates the finer things in life but has the sense and the taste to express that appreciation without resorting to pseudo-classical trickery.
To your right, through the sliding copper panel doors, is the dining area, a long black table at which some of Philippe Starck’s black polycarbonate Louis Ghost chairs mix with more armchair-like numbers in black and white patterned upholstery. This suggests, again as it is meant to do, that the owner enjoys entertaining and that when he does so, he prefers to so in a setting that is cultivated yet informal.
To your left, is what can only be described as the ‘entertainment area’: a cluster of three differently coloured sofas, a low square table, all oriented towards the large flatscreen television hanging on the back wall. This suggests movie nights, quiet chats, somewhere to relax with friends, eat pizza, listen to music, have a drink or, as the brand new PS3 implies, to engage in some good old-fashioned blood-letting of the pixelated kind. It suggests, as it is clearly meant to do, that the owner of this apartment is a bachelor, with a capital ‘B’.
Dressed in sports gear – tasteful greys, labels hidden, sunglasses first worn and then later perched on his neatly shaven head – Raymond Bechara arrives. He shakes my hand, waves me to a seat and then casually deposits himself on the burnt orange-coloured sofa opposite. “The only thing Beirut still needs is a strip club,” he says, fiddling with a set of controls that cause the sofa back to recline slightly and the seat to extend further. “I’m talking about somewhere really classy, somewhere you could take your girlfriend, have a dinner, watch the show. A Stringfellows or a Hustlers, somewhere like that.”
Okay, stop right there. I am wildly misrepresenting the man. Though he did make the comment about the strip club, it was not the first thing he said. We began with a far more prosaic discussion that touched on his business interests, his pursuit through travel of good food, great atmosphere and stimulating experiences and also of his profound love for Paris, where he studied and then worked for 20 years of his life.
In fact, we were at least an hour into the interview before there was any mention of strip bars and then, it was a single reference. I placed it first because in retrospect, it says much about him. It says, in our timid, tan-coloured times, that he is a person who is willing to take chances, unafraid to speak his mind, and not worried about whether he will be misunderstood when he does so; the kind of person who knows there is a difference between the Folies Bergeres and Maameltein, the kind of person the French would call a bon-viveur, a person who really enjoys life.
And he works hard at that enjoyment. Restauranteur, promoter, investor and occasional entertainment director, Bechara believes firmly in putting his money where his mouth is, hence his decision a couple of years after his return to Lebanon in 1995, not only to invest in the Palm Beach Hotel in Ain El Mreisseh, but to work in it as well. “I was assistant director for a couple of years,” he says, later adding “I would never invest in a place I wouldn’t go [to] with my friends.” In other words, ‘do what you enjoy and the rest will follow’. It’s a philosophy that not only put the Palm Beach back on the map, but led to Bechara’s involvement in Crystal, Sky Bar (versions One and Two), Market and Matisse as well as Crystal London. “I’m a very ‘hands-on’ investor,” he says with a slight smile, “I like to interfere.”
Though he professes on repeated occasions, his love for Lebanon, for the quality of life and energy of the people rather than the never-ending instability and immaturity of its political class, Beirut aside, it is Paris that tugs at his heartstrings. “It is such a glamorous city, but there is no nightlife,” he sighs. “The French just aren’t up to the job, they don’t know what they are doing.”
While I am tempted to agree, if only for an atavistic mix of obscure Anglocentrism and blind prejudice, I play Devil’s Advocate. After all, this is not a view generally shared by many of Bechara’s star-struck compatriots – who view Paris with the dispassion of a sugar-addict in a sweet shop. “They have no sense of service, you pay the maximum and get the minimum,” he continues, no doubt outraging French patriots around the world. “They had great private clubs once but not any more. Paris deserves better.”
He ponders this statement for a while, with the air of someone who has just decided that he might have to open his own club in Paris, if only to have somewhere decent to go on his next visit. Then, his energy getting the better of him, he’s up and offering to show me around the rest of the apartment. As we reach the stairs to the roof, I compliment him on the design and ask him whether it reflects his personality. “People who know me immediately say that it’s very me,” he smiles. “It’s funky, not the usual Beirut déjà vu.”
The rooftop, Bechara’s summer hangout has a lap pool, Jacuzzi, sundeck and a bar. The view is spectacular, a good 50km sweep of Lebanon’s coast and mountains. Even now, it’s breathtaking. Back inside, he guides me through the kitchen (an homage to chrome and black granite) to the bedrooms. Suddenly, El Khazen’s post-minimal palette of polished concrete, metal details and designer furnishings, used to such sterling effect elsewhere, gives way to warmer materials. Padded fawn leather walls, Shoji screen doors, custom-woven carpets and miles of built-in wardrobes, the over-all impression is one of having stepped into a luxury hotel.
The master bedroom is an epic of pillows, downy comforters and subdued lighting. A central television screen, which can be rotated to face the bed or the diwan-style seating area at the back of the room, acts as both entertainment centre and room divider. Sweeping curtains, a chandelier, it’s all so Franco-friendly that looking out of the balcony window, I somehow expect to see the rooftops of Saint-Honoré. “Actually,” he says, as we walk back into the living room, “there is something else Beirut is really missing.”
I do a quick mental run through my own (short) list of unrequited Beirut desires. “But I’m not going tell you right now and give it away because it’s a project I want do myself. Just give me a year or two, okay?”
