The Story of the Green Hill: A Model Village for Housing Summer and Winter

The housing crisis in Beirut: Observers note with interest the signs of a building renaissance which for ten years now has been bursting forth in Beirut; and whoever descends from the sky at the international airport is seized with wonder at this steady ferment of building — as though Beirut were in a perpetual race with construction.

They say that this renaissance, going forward at full speed, has solved the housing crisis in the capital. Perhaps that is true... but at the same time it has created a crisis of another kind, suffered today by hundreds of families who find no longed-for rest amid the din, the crowding, and the disorder; and these families, owing to their ties with Beirut, cannot bear to move far away from it. Where, then, is the one who will solve this crisis?

New building ideas applied in Lebanon: The answer to this question has been given by a select group of Lebanese citizens recently returned from Venezuela and Colombia, most of them engineers and land experts whose circumstances allowed them to observe at close hand the course of the astonishing building revolution that swept those countries and transformed Caracas and its suburbs, in a short span of time, into one of the beautiful capitals to be found in this age. These technical men brought back with them, on their return to Lebanon, a handful of bright new ideas, with the intention of applying them in the mother country; and they became the sound nucleus of a great company concerned with planning and erecting modern model villages.

Outside Beirut: The members of this company found, after study, exploration, and negotiation, that these model dwellings could not be erected in Beirut itself; the search had to turn to the quiet outskirts, where the hills are of modest height, where the climate is temperate the year round, and where, accordingly, one can live both summer and winter...

'The Green Hill': From here began their serious search for the spot answering to their conditions — and it was not long before they found it!... They found it exactly as it had appeared to their discriminating fancy — a sprawling hill clothed in evergreen pine, in a climate of moist breeze, than which nothing is gentler or more delicate!

And in the flood of their great joy they christened it: 'The Green Hill.' Straightway hundreds of feet set out to explore its expanses, and hundreds of eyes to feast upon its lush, virgin charms. And the new name took on descriptions and particulars: it lies nine kilometers from Beirut, on the Beit Mery road

past Mansouriyeh, and its boundaries begin at the 'Ras el-Metn' fork, extending along the main road down to the valley where the Beirut River runs. Its height above sea level ranges between 400 and 500 meters, and its area comes to about a million square meters.

The start of work and sales: Since the first of last April the members of the company have been up and working with energy and application. For the preliminary parceling a number of engineers were enlisted, surveying the district span by span, laying out the broad roads and marking off the plots for building, for farms, for parks and for clubs — exactly along the lines of what is done in Venezuela as regards the provision of sanitary, esthetic, and technical requirements... And at once 'The Green Hill' hummed with visitors and buyers racing to acquire the favored plots of land, overlooking the sea and the mountains at one and the same time, after the company had guaranteed them the provision of water and electricity.

A playground for the children and a club for the grown-ups: The responsible director of works has declared that the intention is, at the outset, to erect a playground for children and a club for grown-ups, with the restaurant and inquiry offices attached to them, so that families may easily answer the company's invitation and spend every Sunday on 'The Green Hill,' becoming acquainted with the virtues of this singular building project, with complete peace of mind as to the children's presence in the cheerful, gentle air, amusing themselves all summer long, if they wish, with useful and delightful games!...

Our mothers' rush to the project: I have congratulated the members of this company — all of them young men overflowing with vitality, resolve, and faith — and I am certain that they will carry their project to the summit of what they hope for. Sufficient for them is this educational awareness, shown in giving the children and the young the first care and the first attention... No wonder our mothers are in the vanguard of those rushing to and encouraging the project of 'The Green Hill,' of whose growth and flourishing we shall bring our readers news month by month. So, until we meet in the next issue.