It was a Venetian palazzo in miniature

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 200. 

Best of all was our accommodation; in a few days we had found ourselves the most enchanting house I have ever lived in. It stood high on a hill looking down over Beirut. Its plumbing and cooking arrangements were fairly rudimentary—though our man-of-all-work Mohammed never once complained—but otherwise it was a Venetian palazzo in miniature, with a long central living room running from the little garden at the back to the vast terrace at the front and, at each end, tall windows crowned with flowing tracery. And that was only the beginning. From the terrace the view took one’s breath away. To the left was the cobalt blue Mediterranean; below us the white, clustered town; and to the right the Lebanon range, dominated by the twin peaked Mt. Sannine, snowcapped even in midsummer. As soon as we could arrange it Anne’s sister Pandora brought Artemis out to join us, wearing the largest and blackest pair of sunglasses I had ever seen.