There are so many questions I would like to ask about the origins
of the property. I can only offer bits and pieces:
I
grew up in Lebanon in the 1930’s and 40’s, and think often of Ainab as
my favorite place in the world.
I
was born Dorothy Kerr, Malcolm Kerr’s sister, and Anne’s sister in
law. We built our house there in the 1930’s along with the Dodds,
Closes, Leavitt’s and Crawfords. When
our parents retired and came back to the US, the original houses were
sold to new owners. Ours was sold to the Crows, whom I never met, but
see someone by that name listed among those receiving this message. Sad to say, none of the Dodd children are
still living, and a good many of the others as well, but I’m still in
touch with Molly Crawford and may be able to find Ray Close (we’re all
in our eighties now.) My brother Doug Kerr is the only other one still
alive in our family, from our generation.
I remember
being told the story about how the property was first found and
purchased by the five young AUB faculty families, but I was so young at
the time, I didn’t pay much attention to details. All I know is that
they bought the property around the time my father
was on sabbatical in the US, and that would have been 1932-33. Their
basic concept was an arrangement of shared, community property, with
each family owning it’s individual property and home surrounding a
community space, which was, of course, to be a Tennis
Court, along with a space for socializing, singing, story telling and
bonfires. I don’t know how our parents managed to decide amicably who
would get the lot with the best view, but somehow they managed to make
that decision, and everyone seemed quite pleased
with the outcome.
The Closes had the house with the panoramic view of
Beirut, the sea beyond, and the sunsets.
The Dodds built their house
close to the trails that climbed the mountain behind our property, and,
as I mentioned before, made the house so high
that they got marvelous views from a very high porch.
The Leavitts and
Crawfords had nice views of the Ainab valley.
And our parents (the
Kerrs) said what they wanted most was the lot with the most privacy. So
the lot they chose was on the side of the Ainab
hilltop away from all the views, but with a nice vista below of an
evergreen forest where the way-wees (jackals) howled at night. We used
to lie in our shack at night listening to them and other sounds from the
forest, but once we got used to them, we kind
of liked that. Our father built a vineyard on the land just below the
house and above the forest, with the help of Arab villagers. So that
all provided a very different, lovely setting.
Our house was the last one to be built, and we moved in when I was
six (around 1936). I remember being very impressed watching the Arab
movers carrying our furniture, without the help of any equipment or
animals. One man carried a large piano on his back
for quite some distance, from the top of the hill where the moving van
was parked, down quite a long path to the house, never stopping to rest.
The tennis court and community space hadn’t been developed yet, but
that construction began during the first summer, with a crew of Arab
workers, and that was an amazingly exciting period for us children. For
reasons I can’t explain, there was a lot of
blasting involved, with dynamite (I can’t remember the word in
Arabic). Every time the workers were about to set off the dynamite,
they’d call out
very loudly, and we’d all run as fast as we could to get as far
away as possible. In retrospect, I wonder if our parents had any
doubts for our safety, but I remember it only as being vey exciting!
After they’d cleared the ground and leveled it
(very carefully, I’m sure, for all of our fathers were devout tennis
players) they paved it.
(Whether they laid a base before the asphalt, I
couldn’t say, but maybe Ray remembers.) I believe there was some
discussion at an earlier point about whether the
surface should have been clay instead, but I’m pretty sure the reason
for asphalt was that it would be very low maintenance, and that was a
big consideration given that the Arab villagers in Ainab and Beysour
were not at all likely to have had any experience
in maintaining tennis courts! I don’t know, and wonder if anyone
does, whether our parents realized at the time that asphalt would
probably crack and heave, if the ground below it ever froze. But if
they hadn’t, I don’t recall anyone ever complaining about
that crazy surface in later years. Somehow, those cracks and humps and
bumps just seemed to be taken for granted, as an added to the challenge
of the game, in the years I played tennis there. Others can comment on
their own experience and reactions in future
years) .
I’ll have other stories to tell in the future about our
various childhood (group) adventures, maybe little by little. Dorothy
