On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, I met a Lebanese Dominican man, who happened to be a friend of my friend’s family. Nabil Khoury, 75, known as Don Nabil, has built in 1970 a house in the province of Barahona near the borders with Haiti. His 1800-square meter summer estate, which he named Villa Miriam after his wife, resembles a jungle of tropical plants and fruit orchards that climb up a cliff. A river pierced its way through the center of the cliff turning into a waterfall that washes the entire estate filling superimposed pools, before joining the Caribbean sea at the end of the stream.
About three years ago, Khoury decided to open the house to the community for a negligible fee so that people can enjoy the estate in a tropical environment, breathtaking greenery and bathe in pure water constantly refreshed by the stream.
For a 100 pesos per person per day, about three dollars or 5,000 Lebanese Liras, visitors can spend the day at this Caribbean jungle. The water is crystalline and potable. It poors at high pressure creating in the pools a natural jacoozzi that massages the entire body.
Khoury immigrated to the Dominican Republic in December of 1947, from Akkar in the North of Lebanon. He was only 12 years old when he followed his dad already a trader in the Caribbean, his mom and his two sisters. Khoury started working in a small clothing store and then took on a granite and cement business that has become prosperous and prominent in the province of Barahona.
That morning in June, he carried a basket full of fruits: different varieties of mango, avocado and coconut from his estate to his neighbors, a trademark of Lebanese hospitality mixed with the warmth of his upbringing in a Dominican environment.
“I am very grateful of the receptivity of Dominicans, I have never felt as an immigrant,” said Khoury in Arabic with a heavy northern Lebanese accent mixing in some Spanish words confirming his firmly established Dominican identity.
Today Khoury is settled in the Dominican Republic with his Dominican wife and children, but he still considers Lebanon the country closest to his heart.
The waterfall of pure crystalline water (Photo by Carla Haibi)
I am a Dominican living in New York City and have been to Don Nabil Khoury’s paradise. It is exactly as you describe it- indeed absolutely breathtaking.
Thank you for publishing this story, it brings many warm memories from my country.
-Karina
What a wonderful story Carla!
Thanks for sharing it!
Interesting story. I’ll keep him in mind in case I visit the area.