The whims of kings are part of any country’s lore. The fable that exists about the Taj Mahal is that Emperor Shah Jehan was so impressed with its beauty and grandeur that he ordered the hands of the architects who had designed it, cut off. A similar story exists about the Beiteddine Palace in Lebanon, built by the emir of Moun Lebanon Bashir Shihab starting 1788, which took over 30 years to finish. The emir was also exceedingly stingy; while he spent millions on creating one of the most beautiful palaces in the world whose surfaces were inlaid with intricate mosaics and designs, he forced all able-bodied men under his rule to labour on the building without paying them any wages. The best artisans from Damascus and Aleppo worked alonside Italian architects and the result was a building that incorporated traditional Arab and Italian baroque. It was built on the original site of Druze hermitage (Beiteddine means “House of Faith”). After 1840, the emir was exiled by the Ottomans. It is now Lebanon’s president’s summer residence. Of the three more palaces Bashir built for his sons, only Mir Amin Palace survives and has been turned to a luxury hotel. Every summer, the palace hosts the Beiteddine Festival.