NASSIF HOUSE, AL -BALAD'S MOST MAGNIFICENT ANCIENT MANSION
February 2018
There is nothing better than enjoying the dawn from the Nassif House (Bayt Nassif) panoramic rooftop during prayer time. One of Balad's most magnificent ancient mansions, which has recently been renovated, Nassif House is a symbol of Jeddah's rich past. Today, it is a cultural center where you can attend special exhibits or lectures given by Historians.
Bayt Nassif has 106 rooms, and the artwork some of the rooms contain is admirable. Besides works on wood, you can see others on tiles as well as Arabic calligraphy. The design style is said to be Ottoman Turkish. This rather describes more the period during which it was built than the relationship to designs popular in the Umayyad and Abbasids cultural centers at this time such as Baghdad, Cordoba, and Damascus. The style is thought to be more related to stylistic elements found along the Red Sea region, Egypt and maybe the Levant at that time.
People used to recognize Bayt Nassif as "The House with the Tree" because it was the only house in Balad that had one. This hardy survivor is a neem tree (Azadirachta indica) and is practically as old as the house and reliable witness of its past.
The construction of Nassif House began in 1872, and it was finished by 1881 for Sheikh Omar Effendi Nassif, member of a wealthy merchant family and governor of Jeddah.
When Abdulaziz Ibn Saud entered the city in December 1925, after the siege of Jeddah, he stayed in the Bayt Nasseef. During his first stays in the city, he used it as a royal residence and received guests here. John R. Bradley, author of Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis, described the Nasseef House as "kind of social salon" in the 1920s, as consuls and merchants gathered there.
This house belonged to the Nassif family until 1975. One of the heirs, Sheikh Muhammad, turned Bayt Nassif into a private library that eventually accumulated 16,000 books, which could be read by anyone visiting him. Today these books belong to the Abdul Aziz University Library.
The House is one of the greatest examples of the local architecture. Going from one room to another one can also show a lot about what the interior of one of these houses was like in bygone days. The house has an irregular plan with rectangular rooms arranged around a central hall, and like a jigsaw rooms added year after year, depending on the need, sometimes up and others next to the existing ones in a sensitive way.
The main entrance to the house is from the north, while there is a second entrance from the west used by the women. After climbing a flight of stairs onto a small platform in front of the house, one enters into a large entry hall (dihliz), that opens to the central room. Who needs an elevator when you can use trained camels to go up and down the five floors of the building carrying goods, especially to the kitchen on the fourth floor? The stairway is, in reality, a ramp with spaced crossbeams, convenient for both man and beast to walk on.
The balconies, too, had a lot more to contribute to the buildings than their beauty. Besides helping to block the sunshine, they were designed to catch the breeze throughout the house, providing ventilation and comfort. Moreover, the wood carved in such a way eased to look outside while remaining hidden from public view.
Some of the balconies, the rawashin (singular: roshan) had a very particular use because the part that juts out over the street was used as an extension of the room and filled with comfortable cushions where people could sit directly in the path of the evening breeze. The ones with beautiful designs are called mushrabiyah and the ones resembling simple, practical grills used as windows are called shish.
The fascinating experience to wander through Balad, admiring the houses, lost among streets with such history, such beauty, and such charm may well be remembered among the most pleasant of your life.