The
Phoenicia was built by the
Lebanese businessman Najib Salha, who founded
La Société des Grands Hotels du Liban (SGHL) in 1953. It was designed by the
American architect
Edward Durell Stone, working with American architect
Joseph Salerno and local architects Ferdinand Dagher and Rodolphe Elias. The design incorporates
Levantine influences in its high ceilings, sweeping staircases and palatial pillars. The hotel's interiors and furniture were contracted with the New York firm of William M. Ballard and were designed by Neal Prince, who was responsible for the interior decoration of most Intercontinental Hotels at the time. In 1966, Intercontinental Hotels added a hyphen to its name, therefore becoming the
Hotel Phoenicia Inter-Continental. The hotel was an immediate success, operating at near constant 100 percent occupancy. As a result, plans were made to expand it. An adjacent property was purchased by SGHL in 1963. Local architect
Joseph Philippe Karam was commissioned to design a 22-story, 270-room addition, which opened on 19 April 1968, increasing the number of rooms at the hotel to 600. The hotel became a battlefield in the
Lebanese Civil War in 1975–6, during fighting known as the
Battle of the Hotels between the
Lebanese National Movement and the
Lebanese Front, and was left a burnt-out ruin. It was abandoned for nearly twenty-five years until the late 1990s, when Mazen and Marwan Salha, Najib Salha's sons and members of the board of directors of SGHL, decided to restore the hotel. It reopened on 22 March 2000, as the
Phoenicia Inter-Continental Beirut, following a $100 million restoration project by architects
Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum. Inter-Continental Hotels was reorganized as InterContinental Hotels Group in 2003, and the hotel's name was modified, losing the hyphen and becoming the
Phoenicia InterContinental Beirut. In July 2003, a third tower, the Phoenicia Residence, consisting of 35 luxury apartments, was opened. The Phoenicia was damaged in the 2005 bombing assassination of
Rafik Hariri in the street in front of the hotel and closed for three months for repairs. In 2011, it underwent a US$50 million revamp that coincided with its 50-year anniversary. In 2012, it was rebranded as the
Phoenicia Hotel Beirut, dropping the use of the InterContinental name, though it remained a part of the worldwide chain. The hotel closed on 5 August 2020, due to damage from the
2020 Beirut explosion the previous day. The Phoenicia Residences tower, containing 35 luxury apartments, reopened in July 2022. The hotel reopened on 3 October 2022 as
InterContinental Phoenicia Beirut, with 193 rooms in the original 1961 Phoenician tower, as well as the hotel's restaurants and banquet facilities. On the occasion of the grand reopening, Mazen and Marwan Salha were awarded the
National Order of the Cedar, the highest state order in Lebanon, by
Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The 1968 Roman Tower, with 253 rooms, reopened in June 2023. ==Art collection==