For a brief spell at the start of the 1940s, the Immobilia Building was not only Cairo’s tallest building, but also the tallest building in the Middle East. The city’s first skyscraper, designed by French architects Max Edrei and Gaston Rossi, was an arresting Art Deco addition to an area that was, at the time, sedate – unrecognisable from the chaos of the modern capital. It was a Belle Epoque enclave where wealthy residents enjoyed tranquil views of the pyramids and the Nile. Then, over subsequent decades, its glory faded as the noise levels and traffic increased. Now it’s back on the international map, after Florian Amereller, co-founder of the Amereller international law firm based in Dubai, began buying up the apartments with a view to creating a stylish alternative to the vanilla five-star hotels for short-term visitors to the city. Four rental spaces geared squarely at an art and fashion crowd have been created by reconfiguring the old homes, with plans for four more. These will be accompanied by a revived, reimagined version of the Exxon Mobil Club on the tenth floor, and a restaurant run by Karim Abdelrahman, the chef behind the celebrated Avec Karim.
The Immobilia Apartments look like the full-time homes of well-travelled tastemakers; each has an interior by Italian-Lebanese AD100 designer Zeina Aboukheir (also amongst the 2025 Hall of Fame inductees), who created the Al Moudira hotel in Luxor. If you know and love that hotel, these residences are for you. Their style is pristine, with a single soft colour chosen as the backdrop for each apartment and a mix of antique furnishings, alongside freshly commissioned objects. The design has a quirky Orientalism that befits its locale. “A lot of what we used was sourced from vanishing historic homes in Egypt,” says Aboukheir. “I wanted to reflect the original way of living in what was once Cairo's tallest building, but mixed it with contemporary art from Tintera and other local galleries.”
The apartments in what was once Cairo's tallest building embody the swirl of international styles that has always made Egypt so compelling for visitors. “We used Persian rugs, Art Deco furniture and Ottoman embroidery,” says Aboukheir. Local brand Malaika Linens was commissioned to create all the bedding, incorporating elaborate stitching by Threads of Hope, founded by Malaika Linens to train and employ women in the city and surrounding areas. The project was as much about restoration as it was about redecoration and repurposing: all the original floor tiles were painstakingly taken up, repaired and replaced, as were the 1940s door handles. While the major hotels within chauffeuring distance of Giza pride themselves on their displays of historic artefacts, the Immobilia Building is one giant artefact in itself, and its fresh interiors are remarkable without being incongruous. It’s eclectic, but then Cairo has always been thus. “It’s about offering a really authentic gateway to experience the city,” says Amereller.
One of the consultants on the project was Philomena Schurer Merckoll, who has a riad in Marrakech and has been spending a lot of time in Cairo of late, scouting for the next big thing. She describes Aboukheir’s contribution to the Immobilia Apartments as cinematic and theatrical. “The streets of Cairo always feel relentlessly and monotonously sepia,” she says. “It’s as if you are looking at them through an Instagram filter. When you arrive at these apartments, suddenly you are in colourful, tactile spaces, but nothing is overblown; it still feels like Cairo and it’s still a very downtown vibe, like Tribeca in New York was in the early 1990s. It’s a high-low mix. Some people will freak out at that, but creative people love it.”
Aboukheir has created a set of apartments that feel like the homes of people you’d like to become friends with. Some rooms incorporate furnishings from Amereller’s personal collection, including antique suzanis and fabrics sourced from numerous trips to Istanbul. (As well as being a lawyer, he is a committed aesthete.) There are also the wonderful elements Aboukheir has found: vintage Christofle silverware and antique Limoges china; a 1920s Moorish-style desk and chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a rare, felted-wool and silk-embroidered Rasht textile from 19th-century Persia; 1950s Murano lamps and ceramics from Cairo shop Madu; and pieces by contemporary artists Hany Rashed and Adel El Siwi. One of the apartments features an Art Deco credenza by renowned French designer Jules Leleu, with elaborate marquetry adorning its surface.
All it takes is a few Immobilia-style projects to turn an area around. Amereller says that this neighbourhood changed when all the wealthy families “moved to Zamalek, like sheep”. The charming, stylish luxury of the Immobilia Apartments may well be what brings the flock back. Or at least inspires a new look that spreads much further than downtown Cairo. egyptbeyond.com/immobilia
Grand Tour
A former butler to the US ambassador in Cairo presides over the apartments and can arrange personalised cultural, culinary and antique-hunting tours in a vintage Jaguar.
