Contrary to popular myth, the “house with the three arcades” is therefore not of Lebanese but of “Beiruty” origins. In the 1990's, after it was shown that this type of housing exists throughout the Mediterranean, experts began to study the exact origin of the “house with the three arcades”: is it a "Lebanese House," or a "traditional house"? Mousbah Rajab (architect and professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University) proceeds cautiously knowing how identity-related questions are particularly sensitive in Lebanon. "Given that each community and people is trying, to the detriment of others, to anchor its origins, the debate around the ownership of this house as a symbol of architecture in Lebanon makes absolute sense in the contemporary political and regional context."

Does it explain why, for many years, it has been the subject of all most passionate discussions and interests? In fact, beyond the debates on the origins of this house which is Mediterranean in essence and the result of a combination of Eastern and European influences and of a specific economic and political context, it is the symbol of an endangered architecture that is at stake because these beautiful houses are nowadays often in ruins, they are condemned by exponential urbanization and end up victims of construction laws and of the inflation of land prices.

Habib Debs (architect and active member of the Association for the Protection and Safeguarding of Old Buildings) stresses, "This house is no longer suitable for the contemporary practices of occupying internal spaces, it marked a defined era and lifestyle." But isn’t it for this exact same reason that the “house with the three arcades” must be preserved as a testimonial of History and fundamental expression of Lebanese culture? Doesn’t it constitute a unifying element contributing to the development of the country’s memory?