As the story goes, Édouard Louis Joseph, the Belgian Baron Empain, arrived in Egypt in 1904 with the intention of completing a railway project in the Nile delta. The plan fell through, but the Baron remained in Egypt. He was so enamored with the country that he established his own town on the outskirts of Cairo and named it Heliopolis.
The Baron was a millionaire, but he didn't need to reach deep into his pockets to find the funds for his own city; he is rumored to have purchased the desert land for only one guinea (a fraction of a dollar) per feddan (about an acre). Heliopolis today is a wealthy, bustling neighborhood in Greater Cairo. Its broad streets and architectural style are clearly the work of the Belgian engineer.
Given his immense wealth, eccentricities, and passion for 'the East,' the Baron built for himself an oriental fantasy palace--with Buddha statues, Islamic and Hindu motifs with inlaid ivory, and a remarkable collection of paintings and sculptures. The mansion, partly modeled off of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, was completed in 1911. The Baron claimed that Egypt would remain his lifelong home and his will declared that he wished to be buried there even if he happened to die outside of the country. His grave is located in the Heliopolis Basilica.
There are a number of myths and ghost stories surrounding the Baron Palace, as it's called in Cairo. Many believe it's haunted and others claim that, following the Baron's death, it was used for Satanic ceremonies. Some say these gatherings were just attended by teenage metalheads. Either way, the police came and booted out the 'devil worshippers' before closing the building to the public. By that time it had been looted clean and covered in the pointless graffiti that is scrawled on every sculpture and historical edifice in Cairo, including the pyramids.
The most bizarre aspect of the building is the upper room that rotates 360 degrees, like a revolving restaurant on top of a hotel. There are different theories as to why the Baron designed it that way, but the most widely-accepted is that he wanted to provide his guests with the best possible view of his beloved city. Another theory says that it was the bedroom of his sick daughter, and the rotations allowed the family to control when and how much sunlight would enter the room. Both of these matters seem like they could be easily solved with strategically-placed windows and blinds, so the Baron probably just added the revolving room for extravagance. The mansion is also connected to a network of tunnels, one of which leads to the Basilica.
Aside from the its creepy appearance, two events may have contributed to its reputation as a haunted house. It is rumored that a few years after the house was built, the Baron's wife mysteriously fell to her death from the revolving room. Their daughter, who would often suffer from psychotic episodes, took refuge in a room in the basement for hours on end. She was found dead there two years after her mother passed away.
The palace grounds are on a main street in Heliopolis. A few friends and I visited the neighborhood yesterday, hoping to find a way inside the palace. It would have been easily accessible if not for the security guards and construction workers that were on the grounds when we arrived. We opened the front gate to the gardens and walked inside but a 'tourism police' officer wearing all white approached us and told us to turn around and leave. We begged and pleaded for him to let us in, my friend yelled, I lied and said I was leaving Egypt for good tomorrow and this is the one thing I wanted to see while I was here. None of it worked. We offered him bribes, but he told us that if we paid him we would also have to bribe all the construction workers. We couldn't afford it.
We walked along the perimeter, trying to see as much as possible through the fence.
The mansion was sold by the Baron's family in 1952. The new owners didn't maintain it. The inside of the building is mostly ruined and the once beautiful marble statues are broken apart and defaced. The grounds now largely function as a posh hangout for local street dogs.
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