How a tribal chief's house built 120 years ago became a boutique hotel on Egypt's Red Sea
The seafront mashrabiya that drew the gaze of visitors to El Quseir for over a century was first and foremost a status symbol. Sheikh Tawfiq Ali Mustafa, supreme chief of the Red Sea branch of the Ababda tribe, wanted his house, which he built in 1907, to be seen in awe by everyone arriving at the port. Sitting on the corniche of Egypt 's oldest surviving Red Sea town, its carved wooden lattice…
El Quseir, Egypt's oldest Red Sea town, once served as a key embarkation point for pilgrims and caravans traveling to the Holy cities. The town's seafront mashrabiya was initially built as a status symbol by Sheikh Tawfiq Ali Mustafa, the supreme chief of the Red Sea branch of the Ababda tribe, in 1907. The Ababda were fishermen and herders who guided pilgrims and caravans for centuries.
However, the arrival of the Egyptian railway and later the Suez Canal led to a decline in El Quseir's significance, with the town's population dwindling. Sheikh Tawfiq's house, with its distinctive mashrabiya, became one of the last physical reminders of El Quseir's once-prominent role in the region. After Sheikh Tawfiq's death in 1960, the house remained vacant for three decades before being restored by Swedish businessman Peter Willem Berg in the late 1990s.
The restored house now operates as a six-room boutique hotel, preserving the town's heritage while contributing to its tourism industry.
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