The stone façade of the guesthouse seen across its terrace, with canvas sling chairs in the foreground and pine-covered mountains rising behind

Two hundred years of stone,and a very good breakfast

A restored monastery in the pine forests above Byblos

Plan your staySee the rooms

Welcome

The house was here long before us

SaQi takes its name from the village around it — سَقي, to irrigate, to give water. The spring that named the place still runs, and the terraces it fed are still planted.

The building began as a monastery two hundred years ago. It passed to Gisèle from her father, and the restoration has been slow and deliberate: original stone left where it stood, lime plaster instead of cement, old windows repaired rather than replaced. Furniture is largely inherited or rescued — the wardrobes, the iron bedsteads, the quilts.

The old stone façade of the guesthouse with a bare vine trained across it, a pair of French doors, and a bench set outside in the morning sun
An antique hand-drawn land survey of the village in Arabic, showing the terraced plots in blue ink
The original land survey of the village

Stay

Three rooms, and the quiet between them

Each room came out of the restoration differently — one under a stone arch that was always there, one whitewashed and hung with drying herbs, one with two bedrooms for a family travelling together. Beyond them there are shared rooms nobody is in any hurry to leave.

View all rooms →

A breakfast table laid with fried eggs, tomato and cucumber salad, bread and blue ceramic bowls
Two jars of homemade preserves labelled by hand — tomato sauce and vine leaves — standing on a stone wall

Dine

Breakfast is the meal we take seriously

Eggs from the hens in the yard, tomatoes and greens from the terraces below the house, labneh, olive oil, za'atar, bread, fruit picked that week. It arrives on hammered copper and it is not a small breakfast.

Through the season Gisèle puts up what the garden gives — tomato sauce, vine leaves, preserves lined along the pantry shelf for winter. Some of it makes it to the table; some of it goes home with guests.

Artichokes, radishes, tomatoes and cauliflower being washed under running water in a galvanised basin
Hens scratching in the yard, one rust-brown and one white
A ceramic bowl of brown eggs beside a bunch of fresh thyme on a striped cloth
A woman in a white shirt smiling as she holds an armful of heirloom tomatoes just picked from the garden
A long table laid for a gathering under the awning, ringed with red velvet chairs beneath bundles of drying herbs

Gather

The long table seats everyone

Under the awning there is a table long enough for a family that has grown, a birthday, a small wedding lunch, a group of friends on retreat. The house has room for gatherings that want to move slowly and stay outdoors.

Enquire about gatherings

Explore

Pine forest, and the villages under it

Trails leave from the property into the pines. Byblos and the sea are twenty minutes down the mountain; the villages between are worth the detours.

Walking from the door

Byblos

Twenty minutes down the mountain: the old harbour, the souk, the crusader castle, and a long lunch by the water.

Nearby villages

In season

Pine-covered hillsides at dusk, the ridgeline dark against a pale sky
A large rosemary bush in full pale blue flower in the garden
The resident dog stretched out asleep on an antique wooden bench against a stone wall

Guest book

What people write on the way out

  • Short quote from the guest book

    First name, year

  • Short quote from the guest book

    First name, year

  • Short quote from the guest book

    First name, year

Contact

Come and stay

Write to us with your dates and who is coming. We answer every enquiry ourselves, so it may take a day.

Email
Where
Saqi Rechmaiya, Byblos District
20 minutes from Byblos

Booking is by enquiry for now. Online booking with live availability is coming.

The tree-lined drive leading up to the guesthouse