A Fading Beauty Outside Safed

By Noam Dvir December 27, 2010

Crossposted from Haaretz

No one seems to question the historical and architectural importance of Bosel House, a spacious, eight-dunam compound in a green forest at the entrance to Safed. It is a splendid building in a European-Arab style, an important icon of the glory days of modern architecture in Israel. Bosel House has been at the center of an endless correspondence — for years — between the authorities, the forces for preservation and the owners. There have been big plans for it, for a student dormitory complex and for a luxury hotel for Kabbala-loving tourists, but it always falls between the cracks.

Part of Bosel House has become a popular events venue while the condition of its other part (or what remains of it) is degenerating. And all of this right under the authorities’ open eyes.

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