Thursday 10 March 2011

Crumbling stone houses of Al-Baha

On our last trip to Al-Baha in the mountains of western Saudi Arabia, I took these pictures of the traditional stone village houses. The colour of the stones are beautiful but the homes are deserted and crumbling I would love to restore one as a holiday home to retreat to they have such wonderful character. This room was the first my Mother-in-law lived in as a young bride.

2 comments:

  1. Wow I can totally imagine such a house restored as a holiday home! I love the carved wood too. Do these houses actually have an owner you can buy them from or are they abandoned?

    Thank you for your interesting posts; I'm having a look at Bil Arabi's collection now!

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  2. Im so glad you liked it. I dream of turning one into a holiday home. Unfortunatly its not so simple most of the houses due to inheritance have more than one owner who often dont agree with is why most of them have fallen into disrepair its sad. The one in my post is owned by my husbands family it is high in the mountain with beautiful views of farming terraces, the stone house village has been deserted but near by they have all buiilt modern houses no one will sell they dont want to let go of their heritage so instead it is crumbling. There are still people however with the knowledge to build them and produce the carved wood, I hope one day we may be able to build one if we can't repair an old one.

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