sentences:  The palace was built by 800 workers in a span of three years, and the building was decorated with highly sophisticated and expensive decorative elements.A local Damascene barber, Shaikh Ahmad Al-Bidiri Al-Halaq recorded in his diary how "every time he [Al-Azm] heard of an antiquity or rare work of marble or porcelain, he would send someone to get it - with or without the owner's consent".After al-Azm's death, the palace continued to house his descendants for generations later.