Grand Serail
The most famous seray is the Grand Serail (, ) in Lebanon, which is the headquarters of the Prime Minister. It is situated atop a hill in downtown Beirut a few blocks away from the Lebanese Parliament. The hill was the site of an Ottoman army base from the 1840s, which was built up, fortified, and expanded in the 1850s. At first it was known as "al quishla", from the Turkish word "kışla", meaning barracks.