Cool bolt-holes and donkeys no longer preserve of the few

It is August and in Lebanon those who can head for the mountains to escape the heat and humidity that grips the capital, Beirut.

My own bolt-hole is Zabbougha, a remote village in the North Metn, where Karams have lived for several centuries and where I was fortunate enough to inherit a house. With its one shop and three churches, the year-round population is a mere 300, a number that swells to almost double in the summer when the softer townies like myself move back.

Zabbougha is not as affluent as the more manicured nearby villages of Kfar Aqab and Ain El Qabou. Indeed, as late as the early 70s, my father's house was one of a handful that had a toilet.

Summers were spent throwing stones at goats, playing cards and swinging on old tyres roped to branches. The men still wore the black baggy trousers, or sherwel, women sat around and baked, and most homes had a donkey. You get the picture.

I always thought Zabbougha had escaped the unfettered and catastrophic property development that has spread across much of Lebanon's mountainous landscape, much of it either in the shape of characterless apartment buildings or purpose-built communities of identical villas with names such as Grand Hills Village, or Delb Country Club.

Zabbougha, I figured, was just too far off the beaten track for the average homebuyer, too parochial even for a Lebanese, let alone a Gulf Arab seeking the cliched mountain retreat.

They may be casting their net as far as the northern coastal town of Batroun, but they wouldn't venture up here, I figured. Someone did spot a crane in Ain El Qabou, but one speculator does not a boomtown make.

Or does it? Last week, as I drove into Zabbougha, I noticed someone had erected a mini billboard by the side of the road. "Zabbougha Townhouses: A place where heaven and nature meet." The architect's mock-up showed a row of two-storey family homes, sited in front of the landmark anvil-shaped rock at the entrance to the town.

OK, the name was mildly ironic and the tag line a bit cheesy but there it was; Zabbougha had placed itself on the property map with the promise of 240 square metre "high-end residential" homes offering "panoramic view, ecological architecture [and a] private garden". There is even the now prerequisite Facebook page.

Bang went my theory no one would want to live in such a closed, not to mention mildly inbred, community.

How things change. I have since been proudly informed by the locals that land in Zabbougha, and villages like it, is in big demand as rising property prices, fuelled by expatriate capital, force homebuyers further and further out of Beirut.

Zabbougha is only an hour's, albeit hair-raising, drive from the capital and is even closer to the towns of Bikfaya, Antelias and Jounieh, so why not live there?

The value of land has gone from US$20 (Dh73.45) per sq metre to nearly $100 in the space of two years. This is still peanuts by local standards and so it is easy to see why the developers of Zabbougha Townhouses believe they can be competitive.

They are not alone. A cousin who 15 years ago started building a house and then abandoned the project is now asking $300,000 for the 1,000 sq metre plot, including a half-built concrete eyesore I have always maintained would be worth nothing to a potential buyer. Well, apparently, he just might get the asking price.

Other locals are also reassessing their assets. Two years ago, a neighbour confessed he was bored with his summer home, complete with basketball court and swimming pool, and wanted something smaller. "It's too big for me," he said. "If someone offers me $300,000, I'll take it." Now I hear he will only listen to offers in excess of $1 million.

The reality, however, is not so idyllic. With an increase in the cost of living, especially in the price of petrol and heating oil (important factors in year-round mountain living), life for ordinary Lebanese is getting tougher.

This year may have seen Zabbougha's first commercial property project but it is also the first time I have known someone to leave the village after his house, in his family for generations, was repossessed.

In the meantime, I have found myself looking after his donkey, which for obvious reasons was unable to follow his master to Beirut. It lives in the lower garden where it swishes its tail and eats lavender stalks and mulberry leaves.

I wonder what are the tenants' rules on donkeys at Zabbougha Townhouses?

Michael Karam is a communication and publishing consultant based in Beirut. He was the founding editor of Now Lebanon.com