Red carpets still run down the airy hallways of the mountaintop presidential palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Large chandeliers hang in ornate reception rooms filled with wooden damascene furniture. Modernist sculptures remain in place in offices and sitting rooms.

But since Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria for more than two decades, fled the country on Sunday, the armed rebels who burst out of the country’s north and stormed days later into the capital have taken charge of this monument to a brutal reign.

They man the palace gate, keeping out looters and curious civilians. They sleep on couches in a cavernous reception hall. And they marvel at how much it must have cost to build and maintain the giant building from which Mr. al-Assad ruled for so long.

“It is wrecked now, but we want to fix it,” said a fighter with his face covered who gave only his nom de guerre, Abu Oweis. Of the palace, he said: “It is beautiful, but it was all for Bashar.”

The rebels allowed reporters from The New York Times to explore the palace, mostly accompanied by Abu Oweis, for no other apparent reason than to make clear that they controlled it.