The old stone masonry buildings belong to the European cultural heritage, they are typical for the Mediterranean area, as well as for the West Balkan. Those buildings are mostly characterized by robust and stiff structures. Some of their structural elements like thick walls, domes or arches crack already by moderate earthquake motions, but without loss of the stability. The damages are often cumulated through many years, even centuries, and different causes. The older stone masonry buildings generally don’t fulfil the demands of contemporary technical codes. In order to achieve necessary level of safety, when exposed to stronger earthquakes, they should be retrofitted or strengthened in most of the cases. On the other hand, they belong very often to the important cultural heritage of the specific state or region. Improvement of the structural capacity and other structural interventions result in longs and sometime rather exhausting discussions with conservators. To find an equilibrium between structural and aesthetical has never been an easy engineering task. Typical stone masonry buildings dating from the Ottoman period in Bosnia and Hercegovina were analysed. They are situated in the region where PGA greater than 0.30 g for the 475 years return period could be expected. The buildings were seriously damaged or even totally demolished during the last war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The rebuild, strengthening and reconstruction works were performed respecting their original form and cultural value. The task was particularly challenging taking into account the original construction method and the buildings materials used previously. However, in order to provide adequate resistance and ductility and fulfil the demands of new building codes the contemporary construction techniques and building materials had to be carefully implemented.