Urban development outside the walls of Jerusalem began only after 1850. These new suburbs embodied the spatial traditions of their different religious and ethnic patrons. Russian, French, English, German, and particularly Jewish émigré complexes have been well researched. Less thoroughly studied are the new Palestinian suburbs. The largest house of the Husseini neighbourhood is the focus of this analysis. An investigation of the fabric of the building and its written and photographic archive allows a reconstruction of the structure's developmental stages. Its changing form records the cultural shifts in Ottoman Jerusalem affected by the growing presence of Western interests in the region.