In the heart of Heliopolis, one of Cairo’s oldest suburbs, a house of horrors once existed. Long before it became a terrifying legend, it was the extravagant, terracotta-colored, Hindu-inspired home of Baron Edouard Empain, a wealthy Belgian industrialist: better known as the Baron Empain Palace. Renovations in recent years have refreshed the city’s outlook on the mansion, now a prime tourist destination and wedding venue that heralds Heliopolis’s history. Nevertheless, the petrifying legend behind the palace still remains for those that remember its past – one of alleged mysterious deaths, morbid rumors, and satanic parties. Edouard Empain was not always a Baron. In fact, the noble title of Baron was awarded to him in the later years of his life by Belgium’s King Leopold II in 1907 for Empain’s efforts in industrializing the country. In fact, the industrial tycoon was the child of an underprivileged family. When Empain visited Egypt for the first time, to rescue a failing project of his company, he fell in love with the country and its people. He bought a stretch of desert land and commissioned his palace to be built on it, becoming the…
