Pharaon married Noelie Cassar, heiress of a wealthy Maltese family from Jaffa, in 1922, while he was national tennis champion of Lebanon.

[4][5] Known as a Mediterraneanist who encouraged cooperation between Christians and Muslims, Pharaon opposed prime minister Riad El-Solh and countered pan-Arabism.

In 1962, Henri Pharaon showed the architect Oscar Niemeyer a large project which he qualified as interesting and consisting in exhuming the ancient city of Baalbeck.

During his lifetime Pharaon gained an international reputation as a collector of art and antiquities, many of which he amassed at the mansion located at Beirut's Green Line.

According to the New York Times, the residence is a "palace [which] resembles a Gothic castle with a hodgepodge of Greek and Roman statues and sarcophaguses in the walled garden.