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A Secret Mariner’s Hideout on Abandoned Lebanese Land

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Bucking the trend for big bright white beach houses is this humble and unassuming structure on seemingly abandoned land on Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast.

With the city lights in the distance, the house at Lycee Amchit, Lebanon, juts out from land like a ferryboat about to head out to sea.

Furnished in threadbare carpets and ancient timbers, the bottom floor houses the public spaces.

The long narrow floor plan suggests a boat.

The master bedroom is on top of the three story building, with guest bedrooms seen here on the second floor, and the ground floor unseen below the hill.

Loosely clad in what seems to be rotting timbers,the nondescript structure presents little interest to possible thieves.

Only once the interior space is entered, is the surprisingly sturdy construction apparent – unseen by the casual passerby.

From outside, the structure suggests an overgrown abandoned industrial shipbuilding space.

On the topmost of the three stories, the sumptuous bed is almost like tucking up under the sea.

This master bedroom floor has a second lap pool that runs the entire length of the long boat-like beach house.

This extenuated lap pool further elaborates on the visual and compositional celebration of horizontality and the far horizon in particular.

Glass bottomed sections of the pool above act as skylights for the space below.

A sitting room at the back entrance to the guest floor uses scrim to remove the neighboring buildings from consideration as anything but local color.

The front of the second floor houses guest bedrooms and is open at center to the living space below.

Overlooking Lebanon’s gloomy seas from the middle floor, it is almost as if you are in an industrial building.

This middle floor is accessible for drive-on parking.

From the street entrance onto the middle floor garage, it looks like a two story space.

In keeping with the exterior disguise as an abandoned warehouse, carpets are threadbare and worn.

Reflecting pebble glass at the back doubles the ocean vistas in front.

Under the long boat decks, a cactus garden thrives.

The strange genius of the beach house by BLANKPAGE Architects   –  it is a secret hideout.