All language subtitles for Abandoned.Engineering.S13E07.Episode.7.1080p.UKTV.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-FFG_track3_[eng]

In Poland, a fairy-tale castle

at the heart of a modern-day
treasure hunt.

The world's media descended
on what brought them all here -

it was the promise of Nazi gold.

An American millionaire's mansion,
caught in a web of controversy.

We're talking about insurance
claims and alcoholism.

Murder.

A ghostly shell in Lebanon
with an influential past.

A group met here that would shape
the modern Middle East.

And an Irish country estate drawn
into a brutal fight for freedom.

Owned by one of the most
hated men in Ireland,

some say that this house was cursed.

Decaying relics...

...ruins of lost worlds...

...sights haunted by the past...

...their secrets waiting
to be revealed.

In southern Poland
is a commanding residence

rumoured to harbour
a precious secret.

Up on the hilltop,
kind of above the tree line,

is this grand, majestic structure.

Inside, that splendour continues.

Red carpeted staircases
lead up to huge hallways

with marble floors.

Yet this opulent citadel
has hidden depths.

Behind an ordinary-looking door
is a secret subterranean world.

As your eyes adjust,
you start to get a sense of

just how large this space is.

It's like you're walking
through a railway tunnel.

Some of the tunnels even
seem to have collapsed

or have been deliberately destroyed,
perhaps to hide something.

For decades, tales were told

of a brutal regime's riches that
went missing in this exact area.

In 2016, it appeared the truth
would finally be revealed.

And everybody's waiting
for the moment

when we finally get to see
the thing we're looking for -

Nazi gold.

There's been some sort of
fortification here

since the late 1200s,

but over time, it's been
destroyed and rebuilt.

In the early 1500s,
the Hoberg family took control,

and their descendants owned it
right up into the 20th century.

But in 1941, the Nazi regime

confiscated the castle
from its owners.

When the Germans invaded
and occupied Poland

during the Second World War,

they seized many lavish residences.

This one is called Ksiaz Castle,
and it was intended to serve as

the Fuhrer's imperial headquarters
in this region.

They wanted to make it a palace
fit for Hitler himself, and in 1943,

work began on remodelling
the interiors to fit his tastes.

The Nazis are going to rip out
everything they think of

as decadent or over-decorative.

But it was below ground
that the biggest changes were made.

To ensure his safety, a private
escape elevator was installed

just opposite Hitler's bedroom door.

The elevator led to a vast
underground network,

excavated at great human cost
by inmates

from a nearby concentration camp.

The sheer scale of the tunnel system

suggests it was much more than
just a place for Hitler to hide.

Germany is under immense stress,
by this point, in the war.

Scarce war materials like concrete,
reinforcing bar, all of these things

which could be used anywhere
in the German Reich,

are being used here.

What is it that justifies
their use in this place?

Historians have theorised that
they could have been anything,

from bomb proof underground
factories to chemical,

or even nuclear research labs.

There is another theory that
might explain what these tunnels

were used for.

Ksiaz Castle has
long been linked to a legend

forged in the dying days
of the Second World War.

It began when the Soviet Red Army

approached the Nazi-occupied city
of Breslau, 60 miles from here.

It's said that during the chaos
of the evacuation,

an armoured train was loaded up
with more than 330 tonnes of gold,

a vast array of jewels, weaponry
and priceless works of art.

So the train supposedly left
the city just before the attack

and started heading down the line
nearby, that ran to the castle.

The legend has it that this armoured
train rattled through one station,

but never came to the next station.

But huge armoured trains
don't just disappear.

The story goes that
there was a railway line

leading into these tunnel networks,

and that once the train
had passed through,

the entrance to the tunnel
was blown up,

hiding the train inside.

Piotr Koper is a treasure hunter
who has spent over a decade

searching for Hitler's lost gold.

He suspects the tunnels
below Ksiaz Castle

were a secret underground train line,

once connected to
the main railway line,

only two miles from here.

Is.

In August 2015, Piotr
and his business partner

made an exciting discovery
under an earthen embankment

next to the main railway line.

The fortune hunters used
ground-penetrating radar

to build up an image of
what was hidden below ground.

Pyotr applied for permission
to start digging,

and the next year,
access was granted,

but the local authorities
gave him just seven days

to complete his investigation,

because the train line
running next to the excavation site

had to be shut down during this time.

On August 16th, 2016, work began.

The world's media descended.

I mean, they were following
every moment.

It's so exciting the idea
that at long last,

after decades of tales of Nazi gold,

we're finally going to find some.

There was a lot on the line
for Piotr and his partner.

Not only had they invested
a reported $131,000 in the dig,

their reputations
were also at stake.

The clock was ticking.

So after seven days of digging,
they found nothing.

No tunnel, no gold, no train.

In the spotlight
of the world's media,

Pyotr and his team
were forced to give up.

Although Peter's hunt for the Nazi
gold train didn't go as planned,

the media attention did provide
an unexpected boost

to the region's economy.

An official from a nearby
town actually admitted

that during the year of the dig,
tourism was up 44%.

And who knows, perhaps the
Nazi gold train is still out there

waiting to be found.

In Atlanta, Georgia,
is an extravagant home

built from the riches
of one of the world's

most famous business empires.

We are in the leafy suburban
neighbourhood of Druid Hills,

and if you go about 500ft
back from the road,

there is this enormous mansion.

It sits on Briarcliff Road in
an area known as Briarcliff Village.

I'm guessing that Briarcliff
has something important

in the history of this region,
but what does it mean?

Inside are these huge rooms
with carved wood panelling,

a grand, like, Gothic ballroom,

numerous bedrooms.

And on the top floor, there seems
to be a hidden door

in one of the wall panels.

The curiosities of this mansion
can only be explained

by the eccentricities of its owner,
the heir to a vast fortune.

He was often at the centre of
a lot of different controversy.

He did whatever he wanted
and he didn't care.

This story's sort of like
a real life version of Succession.

I'm talking powerful people,
narcissism...

Greed, sibling rivalry and abuses
of power, all of which left

a permanent legacy
in the city of Atlanta.

I moved to Atlanta in 2000,
and I lived here for about 15 years

before I read about this abandoned
mansion in the suburbs and thought,

I've got to go out and see it.

Sarah Butler is an author
and expert on the history

of this century-old property.

Her first visit inspired
a five-year journey of discovery.

I found all of these stories
about the man who built it,

and the stories were kind of wild.

Everything in this house
was designed to impress.

In order to understand the man,
you have to understand the house.

This is the home of
Asa Griggs Candler Jr.

Or, as his friends and family

referred to him, as Buddy.

He had a life of immense privilege,
given that he was the second son

and namesake of Coca-Cola
founder Asa Griggs Candler.

But the journey that motivated Buddy
to build such a sprawling estate

was not as simple as it might appear.

As the story goes,
Buddy was a troubled kid.

He was mischievous,
according to everyone.

He was just really difficult
to discipline.

Around the time that he turned eight
was when his father closed the deal

to take full ownership of Coca-Cola
and really take it on.

And that's where he needed
his attention to be.

The only solution, they felt,
was to send him away

to an all-girls school.

The reason for that is,
Asa Sr, his sister, ran the school.

His status as the black sheep
of the family

only got worse as time went on.

During college, Buddy moved in with
his older brother, Charles Howard.

Buddy soon developed
a reputation for bad behaviour.

He made so much trouble
that his brother,

whose grades were great during his
freshman year, started going down,

so he was kind of dragging
his brother down with him.

His father wrote a letter that said,

"I don't know what
I'm going to do with Buddy,

"but I got to find something
to do with him."

And they shipped him off
to California for a year.

Fresh out of college,
Buddy was given a shot

at running the family business
on the West Coast,

overseeing manufacturing,
orders and fulfilment.

It didn't go well.

It probably didn't help
that he spent most of his time

drinking and partying.

Asa Candler Sr never let him
have a part of Coca-Cola

as a business ever again.

His older brother was always
the son who did things right,

and Buddy was sort of the son
who did things wrong.

And that put Buddy in a position
of always trying to outshine him.

That motivation prompted Buddy
to build

an attention-grabbing property
just to compete with his brother.

But he'd made so many
failed investments

that he didn't have the money
to buy the land

to build his new house on.

Yet Buddy always found a way.

So in 1911, a big fire
broke out in his garage

and destroyed all of
his very valuable cars,

all insured and conveniently,
within about a month,

he's moving his family
out to this property

that he couldn't quite afford
to close on until that moment.

Buddy may have owned the land,
but he still didn't have the funds

to build his dream house.

He would have to wait until the
Coca-Cola company was sold in 1919,

when each of the Candler
siblings was paid out handsomely.

Buddy finally got the cash he needed
to start building the house

that would put his siblings
in the shade.

It was called Briarcliff Mansion.

By 1922, when Buddy was 42 years old,

it was ready for he
and his family to move into.

One of the things that I love

is that his brother already
lived on this road.

He built this house
and renamed the road,

so he renamed
his brother's address Briarcliff.

It was a nice little kind of...
finger to his brother.

The name Briarcliff
actually comes from

Buddy's most beloved sports
car, the Lozier Briarcliff.

This, surprisingly, was one
of the few cars to survive

the mysterious fire in his garage.

In 1925,

Buddy was still not content
with his home,

and so he decided
to build a music hall

that included an in-home organ.

The organ, for me, is a really key
part of the story

to understand Buddy.

It was a little bit bigger
than his brother's,

which was a little bit bigger
than their father's.

So I like to say, in this family,

there was an organ-measuring
contest,

but the organs were actually organs.

But Buddy was never
satisfied for long,

and always needed something
else to occupy his time.

One of the things that sort of
marked out Buddy's life

was his obsessions.

You know, he always had to have
the latest, shiniest toy.

He always needed
an exciting new hobby,

and in this case, that exciting
new hobby was magic.

He filled a room with
his magic tricks,

and he would regularly take
an aeroplane to New York City

just to buy more.

In one instance, instead of going to
the magic store in New York,

he simply wrote out a $10,000 cheque

and asked for one item
of everything in the catalogue.

His devotion didn't stop there.

On a family holiday
to the Philippines,

he met a local magician
named Jose Cruz.

Buddy was so impressed

that he actually took him
back with him to America.

Cruz was officially employed
as a butler, but his real job

was as Buddy's personal magic tutor.

But soon, a terrible scandal was
going to engulf Briarcliff Mansion,

and Buddy's love of magic would be
the least of the casualties.

On the 18th of January 1931,

Buddy was woken with the news

that Cruz had been found dead
on the grounds of his property.

But this wasn't an ordinary death.

Jose's body was found next
to a young woman named Gladys,

and Gladys was also his lover,

and at first, it appeared
that the two

had died in what appeared
to be a double suicide.

Gladys's parents disapproved
of the relationship

because Cruz was Filipino.

The suicide note suggested
that the couple felt death

was the only way
they could be together forever.

But things didn't quite add up.

Ultimately, what was determined by
a jury pulled together very quickly

was that it was a murder suicide.

Jose Cruz was very troubled,

and he killed her
and killed himself.

It made national news.

For Buddy, the press attention
was a major embarrassment.

He went to great lengths
to try and bury the story,

leveraging his many
family connections

to try to make the story go away.

The whole affair kind of left
a bitter taste in Buddy's mouth,

so he gave up magic completely.

The one thing, though,
he did not give up, was the bottle.

It's even rumoured that the start
of his next adventure came

because he was drunk
and at a circus in Europe,

and bought a bunch of animals.

In order to fund his newest hobby,
he began charging admission

for people to come visit
his private zoo.

We're not just talking elephants,
we're talking lions, tigers,

black panthers, Shetland ponies,
a whole pack of bears.

But like many of his other projects,
this one was doomed from the start.

What he didn't anticipate was
how expensive it was

to run a zoo on your own lawn.

A dime a person was never
going to make him enough money

to make this viable.

So within a year, he was
already running in the red.

Within two years, he was starting
to lose his temper with people -

this was heavy
in the drinking years.

Buddy was so disheartened,
he gave away many of the animals

to what would later
become Atlanta City Zoo.

His life was spiralling
out of control

and something had to give.

At some point,
late '30s, early 1940s,

he has this realisation
that he is an alcoholic

and he can't live like this anymore,

and he decides to
get right with God.

All evidence points to him

successfully giving up
alcohol completely,

so he spent that latter part
of his life completely sober.

But by then, much of the damage
had already been done to his health

and his finances.

In 1947,

he was, by his standards,
short of cash,

and so he was forced
to sell off Briarcliff.

Now, according to those who knew
him, it was a pretty crushing blow

for him to give up
his beloved mansion.

Six years later, in 1953, Buddy died
from liver cancer at the age of 72.

He may not have left the legacy
that he hoped for,

but he definitely left
his impact on the city.

Nobody is black and white,
good or bad.

He loved his family and friends.

His family and friends loved him.

He really did care about Atlanta,

but he also cared
about himself more.

The irony is that Buddy's mansion
ended up turning into

Georgia's first alcohol addiction
treatment centre,

and it functions in that capacity
through the 1980s.

After that, it was abandoned.

In 1998, Emory University
purchased the 42-acre estate

that included Buddy's mansion
from the Atlanta government.

Now, a multi-million dollar
renovation is in the works.

Gary Hauk is
Emory University's historian.

I'm sure Buddy would have
been heartbroken to see

what had been done to the building

over the 100 years since
the building was finished.

Given the importance of
the Candler family

to the development
of modern Atlanta,

I think it's really vital
to preserve the building as it is

and to restore it,
perhaps as it once was.

In County Limerick, Ireland,
stands a fallen symbol

of the nation's troubled history.

What we see is a patchwork
of fields with cattle grazing.

It's quiet, idyllic, a picturesque
part of the Irish countryside.

But right at the centre of it all
is an unusual, imposing structure.

It could be a ruined Roman temple,
abandoned for 2000 years,

but the Romans
never made it to Ireland.

Whoever built this, at tremendous
expense by the look of it,

didn't expect it to end up
in the middle of a cow pasture.

Yet the sparse interiors retain
a glimmer of faded prosperity.

You can still make out the outlines
of big baronial fireplaces,

big heroic staircases
winding up to a second storey.

It's got corridors and doorways
everywhere, with countless rooms

and underground vaults.

So this was clearly a stately home
of wealth and distinction.

The actions of its influential owner

made him one of the most hated
figures in Ireland.

He did everything in his power
to prevent

the emancipation of Catholics.

Inside this building,
policies were formulated.

Decisions were taken that would lead
to, you know,

an absolute bloodletting
across the country of Ireland.

Little did he know, but he would
end up sowing the seeds

for the destruction of his own home.

I visited this house
over ten years ago.

It's in a derelict state
at the moment,

and this has probably advanced
in the intervening years.

David Hicks is an architectural
historian with a passion

for large country homes
like this one.

They were said to be 22 bedrooms,
five reception rooms,

a six-acre walled garden.

And what is very interesting
is the people inside this house

had a huge influence on the wider
community, a huge influence

on the Catholic population
nationally.

This is Mountshannon House.

It was bought and expanded
in the 1760s by John Fitzgibbon,

an affluent lawyer and politician
from nearby Limerick.

The origin of his fortune dates
back to a time when Ireland

was a country under siege.

In the mid 1600s, the English leader
Oliver Cromwell

led a brutal crackdown
on Catholics in Ireland

after they had rebelled

against the British crown.

As punishment for the uprising,

vast tracts of land were confiscated

and given to British
Protestant settlers.

It also ushered in an era of strong
penal laws against Catholics,

designed to maintain the power
of the Protestant elite.

There was huge restriction
placed on Catholics

in terms of land ownership,
education,

even the type of career
they could pursue.

John Fitzgibbon was raised Catholic,

and the only way he could have owned
an estate of this size

was by making a great sacrifice.

John changed his religion in order
that he could pursue a law career

and also practice in the courts,
as Catholics were banned

from practising law
in the courts at that time.

He was very successful and he died
a very wealthy man by 1780.

He never forgot his roots, though,
and often defended Catholics

for fighting the Penal Laws.

But Fitzgibbon's son and heir,
also named John,

was cut from a different cloth.

Being born and raised in the elite
class of the Protestant Ascendancy

seemed to go straight to his head.

And curious thing about him,

he saw the dilemmas his father
had wrestled with being a Catholic,

and instead of that filling him
with a kind of compassion

and understanding for the plight
of Catholics in their own land,

it made him even more bigoted,
even more oppressive

than the English themselves.

Fitzgibbon Jr rose to become
a powerful politician

and enforced his beliefs
without mercy.

He did everything he could to ally
himself to the Crown,

always desperate to fit in
with the English aristocracy,

and spent his life
opposing Catholic emancipation.

By the late 1700s,
trouble was brewing.

Irish Catholics, increasingly
frustrated by the injustice

of the Penal Laws,
were beginning to organise.

There's Irish nationalist groups
like the Society For United Irishmen

who form and say, look,
we need to, like, unite together

and take our land back
from these British interlopers.

Unsurprisingly, Fitzgibbon threw
everything he could at them,

outlawing the group and forcing
its members underground.

The United Irishmen
didn't give up so easily.

Inspired by the successes of the
American and French revolutions,

they resorted to an armed rebellion
across Ireland in 1798.

But after a few months, British
troops had defeated the rebels

in battles around the country.

Fitzgibbon authorised the arrest
and imprisonment of the Irish

without trial, and resorted
to the most brutal torture

as forms of intimidation.

Hundreds were executed
and many deported to Australia.

Fitzgibbon's greatest betrayal
of his fellow countrymen

was still to come.

The rebellion prompted the Prime
Minister to pass the Act Of Union,

which formally incorporated Ireland

into the Union Of
Great Britain And Ireland.

Under the terms of the act,
Ireland's parliament

was to be abolished.

Yet many British politicians felt
the time had come to grant

Irish Catholics more freedom.

But fearing that more Catholic
power would ruin the country,

Fitzgibbon convinced
King George III

not to give his royal assent, saying
it would violate his coronation oath

to maintain Protestantism.

And he is famous for saying
that the Act Of Union

would make Ireland
as tame as a mutilated cat.

The bitter irony was that
Fitzgibbon's fanaticism would lead

to his own downfall.

His rule in Ireland was so harsh
that he alienated even the British,

who said, you know,
this is no way to knit together

Ireland and the United Kingdom,
with these kind of policies.

So he wasn't kept on
in the government.

He returned to Mountshannon
deeply depressed.

Call it karma,

but the next year he died
after falling off his horse

when he was riding
around his estate.

The people of Limerick thought it
would be a suitable memorial to him

to deposit a number of dead cats,
not only on his coffin

but on his grave.

And this, I think, illustrates
how much this man was disliked

in the locality.

Over the next century, the Irish
nationalist movement gathered pace,

fuelled in part by the actions
of men like John Fitzgibbon.

But ultimately, it would take
a global conflict to pave the road

for lasting change in Ireland.

The First World War halted
the passage of a new law

known as Home Rule, which was meant
to give Ireland more local control.

In 1916, militant republicans
staged an uprising in Dublin.

It became known as the Easter
Rebellion or the Easter Uprising.

The rebels were surrounded
and bombarded.

Thousands were sent to
internment camps

and 16 of their leaders
were executed.

With this violent repression,
mainstream Irish opinion

turned strongly against the British.

In 1919, the War of Independence
broke out.

The Irish forces united under the
banner of the Irish Republican Army,

more commonly known
by its initials, the IRA.

The IRA only had a few thousand men
and limited supplies,

so were forced to fight
a guerrilla campaign.

Their tactics included
ambush, bombings,

espionage, and assassinations.

The Irish feel that they've been
kept down for centuries

by the English, so it becomes
a really nasty war.

The southwestern city of Limerick
was an IRA stronghold,

which made it a target
for British forces.

Mountshannon house would be
caught in the crossfire.

The one thing to understand

in the political upheaval of Ireland
in the 1920s

was that a house like this
could be used as a barracks.

It sat within a demesne of
900 acres,

so therefore from the surrounding
area, if anyone was approaching,

it could easily be defended.

As well as seen as being
an asset to some,

it was also seen as a threat
if your enemy took control of it.

With forewarning that thousands
of British troops

were about to arrive in Ireland,

The IRA set out on a campaign
to destroy structures

that might be used as barracks
to house these troops.

On the 14th of June, 1920,
John Fitzgibbon's once lavish estate

was razed to the ground.

A band of IRA volunteers
snuck into Mountshannon.

They planted paper and hay
around the building

and covered it in oil.

The house burned for three days,
and a massive fire

could be seen from Limerick.

There's a real circular aspect
to the story,

because Mountshannon House
is burned to the ground

by the very Irish nationalists
that are basically fanned into life

by the repressive policies
of this guy Fitzgibbon

back in the early 19th century.

In 1921, a year after
Mountshannon was destroyed,

a peace treaty was agreed.

The terms of the deal divided
the country into Ireland,

which was independent,
and Northern Ireland,

which remained part of
the United Kingdom.

Mountshannon stands
as a haunting symbol

of the turbulent history of Ireland

and its long struggle
to achieve autonomy.

I think this house needs
to be opened up, conserved,

studied and just another
element of our history

that maybe we need to
become more familiar with.

In the mountainous region
of Sofar, Lebanon,

an eerie ruin dominates
the landscape.

Up here, there's a blizzard raging.

As you make your way up the road,

the outline of this palatial
building comes into focus.

The roof is entirely missing

and snow is just piling up
on the top floor.

You can see how well built it is,

that even though it's been empty
for many decades, it still stands.

Inside, little remains of
the structure's glorious past.

In one room, there's a plush,
red sofa and a mirrored table.

There's no doubt,
this was a room for entertaining.

In this lobby, you see these
two grand, curving staircases.

Clearly in its day, it was a place
to make an entrance.

In the beginning, this was a beacon
for the rich and famous.

In the end, it became a tragic
victim of circumstance.

The history here wasn't all happy.

These holes in the walls
look a lot like bullet holes.

Carlos Haber's family
has been the caretakers of this site

for almost a century.

Today, he continues that legacy.

The family that Carlos
and his ancestors worked for

were one of the wealthiest
in Lebanon.

The Sursocks are
a Greek Orthodox Christian family

that have lived in Beirut
since the 18th century.

They became powerful bankers,
traders, importers,

all sorts of businesses,

and of course, along the way,

they acquired a great amount of
power and influence

in the political system.

But this was not the Sursocks
private home.

It was an ambitious business venture,

intended to serve
society's upper echelons.

This is the Grand Sofar Hotel.

It first welcomed guests in 1892.

Alfred and Michel Sursock

had a vision for a lavish getaway

catering to the rich and famous
of the Arab world.

Their timing could not
have been better.

A few years after the hotel opened,

the first railroad running
from the coast in Beirut

to Damascus in Syria opened.

Passengers could step right off the
train and through the doors

of one of the most luxurious
destinations in the Middle East.

You know, you think of
the Middle East as being

quite culturally conservative,
and much of it, of course, was.

But Lebanon was always different,

and this hotel
really exemplified it.

You had gambling, you had drinking.

Lord knows what else was
going on behind those walls.

The hedonistic mountain retreat
became the place to be

for fun-loving celebrities.

The hotel was a destination for big
names across the Arab world,

including the actor Omar Sharif
and the Lebanese singer Sabah.

The hotel wasn't just
a place for nightlife

and for the rich and famous
to blow off steam.

It was also a meeting place
for political leaders.

In the late 1940s, the luxury
resort hosted a gathering

of presidents and kings.

The powerful group would come
to shape the modern Middle East

and trigger a series of events
that led to disaster

at the Grand Sofar Hotel.

After World War II, the whole world
was, in a way reorganising itself.

Borders that had been established
by European powers

were being renegotiated.

This was especially true
in the Middle East.

The Arab League was formed in 1945
as a way for the Arab states

to develop their economies
and coordinate their political aims.

In October 1947, leaders
from Syria, Jerusalem, Lebanon

and Saudi Arabia all met here
at the Grand Sofar Hotel.

There was a lot happening
in the region

that concerned them greatly.

In particular, there was the move
to create the State Of Israel

in a portion of Palestine.

In the smoky rooms of the hotel,

they drafted an agreement
for an Arab army,

discussed a United Arab currency,

and, most importantly,
pledged support for Palestine.

In 1948, Israel declared
its independence.

In response, the
Arab League countries

launched a synchronised attack.

After almost a year of fighting,
a fragile armistice was reached.

But over the next 25 years, hundreds
of thousands of Palestinian refugees

sought shelter in Lebanon.

Tension between the Muslim
and Christian populations grew

until it finally boiled over.

When the civil war erupted
in the 1970s,

every aspect of life in Lebanon
was upended.

Even here in Sofar,

warring militias battled
throughout the town.

As the casualties mounted,
they needed somewhere

to house their wounded.

But the Grand Sofar Hotel

would soon be taken over
by another invading force.

In 1976, Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad

ordered his army to move in
to neighbouring Lebanon

in a supposed Arab League effort
to try to restore order.

The Syrians set up
their headquarters

in the abandoned hotel,
and as troops so often do,

they wrecked the place.

They even stripped tiles to line
and reinforce their trenches.

The Lebanese Civil War
raged on until 1990.

Syria didn't withdraw their troops
from the country until 2005.

By that time, the Grand Sofar Hotel
had been destroyed

beyond all recognition.

The hotel is still in the hands
of the Sursock family.

Of course, it's a magnificent ruin,

but a grandson of the family,
in recent years,

has tried to restore it
as a site for artistic exhibitions.

Carlos is optimistic
about what the future holds.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media