American Colony Hotel
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| American Colony Hotel | |
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| Hotel facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | Jerusalem |
| Opening date | 1902 |
| Developer | Ustinov |
| Website | www.americancolony.com |
The American Colony Hotel is a luxury hotel located in a historic building in East Jerusalem.
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[edit] History
The building was originally the palace of Arab pasha Rabbah Daoud Amin Effendi el Husseini, who lived there with his harem of four wives. Soon after his fourth marriage, the pasha died. In 1895, the palace was sold to a group of messianic Christians who arrived in Jerusalem in 1881 and set up a commune. Their leader was Horatio Spafford, a lawyer from Chicago and his wife, Anna. In 1896, the Americans were joined by two groups of Swedish settlers. [1]
In 1902, a Jaffa hotelier named Ustinov (grandfather of the British actor Peter Ustinov) was looking for a place to put up guests visiting Jerusalem and asked the Spaffords to accommodate them. Soon after, the building was turned into a hotel.[2]
[edit] Today
Today the American Colony Hotel calls itself an oasis of neutrality in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.[3]It is still owned by descendants of the Spaffords. A grandson, Horatio Vester, was the manager until he retired in 1980. His wife, Valentine, still lives at the hotel. [4]
Since 1980, the hotel has been run by a Swiss company. The pasha's original bedroom is called "Room One." In 1995, Peter Ustinov visited the hotel and planted a palm tree in the courtyard. [5]
[edit] References
- ^ Street People, Helga Dudman, Carta, Jerusalem, 1982, pp. 83-104.
- ^ Saudi Aramco World : Hotels With a History
- ^ Jerusalem Hotels | American Colony Hotel Jerusalem | Introduction
- ^ Unusual hotels of the world http://www.unusualhotelsoftheworld.com/HotelDetails.aspx?HotelID=339&sender=search&keyword=&location=&budget=&type=
- ^ Saudi Aramco World : Hotels With a History
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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