In Syria, delicate preservation work is pushing against profit-driven speed.

Wealthy Damascenes first began abandoning their old courtyard houses in the mid-20th century in favor of Western style, open-plan apartments outside the walls of the Old City.

"Until very recently, little attention was paid [to] the usage of these houses," Mr. Esmail says. "Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a good number of these houses were used as warehouses after being deserted by their inhabitants because of the problematic issues of maintenance and the lengthy government approvals required for restorations."

While Cairo's historic center has crumbled under the weight of population and pollution, Damascus faces a different set of preservation problems. Thousands of houses are still standing in an Old City relatively removed from the traffic and congestion of modern Damascus. The issue is how to control ever-growing investments that see in the city's architecture and heritage only an opportunity for tourism and commerce.

"What is missing in these restorations are new ideas and innovation," says Daniela Gurlt, an architect and adviser at German Development Services, which cooperates with German Technical Advising and the Syrian government on rehabbing the Old City. "As a business model, as long as tourists are paying to get into the Old City, fine.... But for the architecture I don't know how sustainable it is."

Reuters recently quoted Syria's tourism minister saying that he expects the number of hotel beds to double to nearly 90,000 in the next three years. The number of hotels could grow from around 15 today to more than 50 in the half-square-mile Old City, according to an Associated Press report on the number of government-issued licenses. Restaurants could grow from a few dozen now to 120.

"We always wanted to keep Damascus a city of inhabitants, not a Disneyland city for visitors," says architect Zabida.

On a recent visit to Beit Nizam, the house – a palace, really – was hosting another TV soap opera. The rear courtyard, in another century reserved for relatives of the family, was full of camera crews. Like its 18th-century neighbor, Beit Sibai, Beit Nizam is currently an informal museum and occasional set for Syrian soaps and films, most of which tell dramatic tales of the past, often set during the tumultuous years of the French Mandate (1923-43).

Across the street is the empty Beit Kuwatli, currently sheathed in scaffolding. The late 19th-century house has a varied history, from opulent residence to school to refuge for Palestinian refugee families who fled after the 1967 war with Israel.

The families carved makeshift bathrooms in the stone floors and painted over 19th-century murals of Istanbul that had once signaled outward allegiance to the Ottoman capital and its sultan. The families were evicted when the Syrian government bought the house in the last decade to begin a modest restoration.

While the properties will reopen as a luxury hotel, many of the ornate first-floor rooms will remain open to the public as cafes, galleries, and "showrooms," according to Aga Khan's Esmail. Beit Kuwatli will not have guest rooms. A structural review determined it could not support them without major layout changes. This is a shift from other commercial and tourism conversions that quickly resize rooms and fit bathrooms into every available space, despite the burden on centuries-old wooden floors and foundations.

"There was a fear from residents and others of a pure commercialization of these cultural assets," Esmail says. "The intention is actually to do a major restoration that would entitle these houses to be present 30, 40, 50 years from now."

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