An Arab Beverly Hills

Most people won’t see this house, but it is worth reading about.

By GLORIA DEUTSCH
Arab Home (photo credit: Uriel Messa)
Arab Home
(photo credit: Uriel Messa)
Kafr Bara is considered the Beverly Hills of the small Arab triangle, which also contains Jaljulya and Kafr Kasim, and is located between Kfar Saba and Petah Tikva. With 3,000 inhabitants, many living in splendid villas like this one, not just anyone can buy land and build a home here.
According to Ahmed, the successful businessman who owns this home, everyone knows everyone in the small town and it’s almost impossible for outsiders to move in.
“It’s a bit like a kibbutz,” he says with a smile.
Ahmed built his dream home a year ago and lives here with his wife, three sons and a live-in foreign maid.
From the outside, the palatial dwelling is all white stone, balustrades, archways and sweeping staircases – quite a traditional design. Inside it’s modern yet not minimalist with emphasis on the play of light, which can be changed from blue to red to white at the touch of a button.
The ground floor is reserved for living quarters, the maid’s accommodation and Ahmed’s study, which contains screens showing what is going on outside.
With the help of security cameras all around the house, he can keep an eye on every entrance as well as activity in the street outside.
The heavy front door opens into the family living room, where white and black leather couches face a large television screen and an aquarium, so if there’s nothing much on the box you can always watch the exotic fish swimming around.
Putting the lounge directly in the front was a choice that Ahmed, who designed the house himself, deliberately made.
“A guest should feel immediately welcome and should not have to go into the kitchen to be received,” he says. “White is the dominant color in the lounge and in fact the whole house. It’s alive, romantic and reflects the optimistic nature of the people who live here.”
White Japanese-style linen blinds keep out the heat of the day and touches of bright color appear in a wall painting and the table flowers. Space-age light fittings hang from the expanse of ceiling.
We take our strong cardamom-flavored coffee onto the back patio while Ahmed talks about Kafr Bara.
“It’s a rich, clean village and the inhabitants are academics – teachers, doctors and businesspeople,” he says.
An extra kitchen is set up in a covered patio outside the back door, a feature I have noticed in many Arab houses.
“Yes, we often have an outside kitchen for cooking pungent things, so the house won’t smell,” he explains.
And indeed, the main kitchen is far too beautiful to sully it with too much cooking, with glass-fronted wooden display and storage cabinets, elegant brass handles and a countertop made of different South American marble pieces stuck together into a strong multi-colored whole.
A winding spiral staircase with a special layer of glass over the granite porcelain tiles leads up to the next floor where each of the small boys has his own bedroom.
The master bedroom is a revelation – decorated in red and white, Ahmed proudly shows me how at the push of a button, the whole glamorous scene can be bathed in a matching red glow from the ceiling.
The huge round bed is covered in a red counterpane, and the two striking red and white chairs under an Andy Warhol Marilyn portrait turn out to be, on closer inspection, a pair of high-heeled shoes! The adjoining bathroom is separated from the rest of the room by glass walls and the bath is like a huge modern free-standing and undulating sink.
Out in the garden, Ahmed has built a glass-walled family home cinema which is insulated against the elements and he loves to come here and watch movies, especially when it’s pouring rain outside.
The garden is a repository for decorations of all kinds, especially animal sculptures, and one particularly pretty corner has a fountain trickling from clay pots surrounded by a collection of stones from the area.
When winter comes they will bring in logs and warm the house in the brick-covered fireplace in the lounge.
Ahmed is very happy with his well-cared for home.
“I took an architect and a designer – but actually the end result came entirely from my own thoughts and ideas,” he says.