Fortune Archives: ‘Bikinis as usual’ in a war-weary city

Construction of the Summerland Hotel in Beirut was already underway when Lebanon’s brutal civil war broke out in 1975. But that didn’t stop the brothers Raja Saab and Khalid Saab from building their glitzy resort on the Mediterranean waterfront of the beautiful, war-weary city. 

A 1982 story by Fortune associate editor Kenneth Labich—reported by Roberto Suro, a correspondent for the TimeLife News Service—chronicles the rise, fall, rise again, and fall again of this iconic Beirut landmark. 

In 2024, as the city once again faces the horrors of airstrikes and buildings in rubble, Summerland is a potent reminder of the resilience of the city and its people.  

“Soon after its doors opened in 1978, Summerland had become the place in Beirut to escape the war,” Labich wrote in 1982. “Thousands of local residents would gather for lavish poolside buffets on Sunday afternoons.”

To recoup some of the millions they spent on construction, the brothers—businessmen who had made a fortune in real estate, construction, and finance in Saudi Arabia—invited other well-heeled Beirutis to join Club 500, in which $1,000 a month bought preferred shares in the Saabs’ holding company, which owned Summerland. Club members had access to special facilities and discounts at the resort.

In the summer of 1982, the war outside breached the hotel’s gates, and heavy Israeli shelling devastated the resort. “[By] the time the firing ended in late August, Summerland had been hit by over 300 projectiles,” Labich wrote. The Saabs rebuilt, recruiting the hotel’s staff to keep them employed: “Chefs, receptionists, and waiters hauled bricks and mixed cement to get the job done,” he wrote. But a few months after a grand reopening, Summerland was hit again, this time with a massive bomb attack that killed two security guards and four hotel staffers. Again, the brothers rebuilt with the help of their staff. 

“Unlike some Beirut businessmen, who have begun to abandon hope, the Saabs remain consistent, voluble, irrepressible optimists,” wrote Fortune managing editor William S. Rukeyser in his letter introducing the Oct. 17, 1983, magazine issue. He recounted how Suro had visited recently and found that it was “bikinis as usual at Summerland” and observed: “It must take a good deal of concentration to sunbathe.”

Saab told Fortune that “a hardy new strain of capitalist has sprung up in Lebanon since the war broke out,” adding: “‘These people have developed strong roots through many hardships.” Those strong roots sustained Beirut through the 15-year Lebanese civil war, through terrorist attacks and bombardments. And here we are again: At least 22 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes this week, and the news images of rescuers frantically looking for survivors in the rubble of bombed buildings have a devastating familiarity.

After closing in the 1990s, Summerland reopened as a 153-room five-star resort in 2016, operated by Europe’s Kempinski Hotels. The renovation reportedly cost $500 million and included a pool, a 1,500-square foot spa, seven restaurants, and a marina. Some of the families among the original 500 Club, shareholders who took the leap and invested in the Saabs’ grand vision, still own private beachside cabanas on the premises.