Grand Serail (Government Palace), Beirut

Ibrahim Pasha of the Egyptian military discovered the hill in 1831 when he had briefly expelled the Ottoman occupiers from Beirut. Ibrahim Pasha liked the hill. It was ideally situated away from the crowded city and it overlooked the sea. The Ottomans returned in 1840. They also liked the hill. It was a great spot for a military base.

Today the Serail Hill is the site of the old Ottoman barracks, the Serail. It sits in downtown Beirut, a few blocks away from the Lebanese Parliament building. The Grand Serail is the most important of the three Ottoman monuments on the hill. The other two are the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) and the Hamidiyyeh clock tower.

In 1853 the Ottoman government began fortifications. Final modifications of the Serail were made by 1894. Sultan Abdulaziz had added a hospital in 1865. The hospital had two wings for an infirmary and an apothecary. In 1918 The French turned the hospital into a courthouse. The site is now the Institute of Fine Art of the Lebanese University.

The architecture of the Serail is akin to the austere facade of the Selimiye Barracks of Istanbul. There are two high-ceiling levels with a facade more than 260 feet long. The east side has a portico arcade with two wings. Each wing has three rows of 16 windows. The four wings of the Serail enclose a courtyard with a limestone fountain.

The facades, inside and out, have 588 arches and arcades. The style of arches include lobed, pointed, rounded and mandolin. There are 92 pointed arcades. The Serail is currently the Office of the President of the Council of Ministers of Beirut.

Former Primte Minister Rafic Hariri installed a plaque over the entrance arch reading: "If political rule lasts perpetually for anyone, it would not have reached you."