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King David Hotel
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The King David Hotel is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. The hotel was built with locally quarried pink limestone and opened in 1931. It was founded by Frank Goldsmith, father of the billionaire investor, Sir James Goldsmith. The King David Hotel is now a Jerusalem landmark and one of Israel's most famous hotels. It is owned and operated by the Dan Hotels group.
Architecture
The design for the hotel was commissioned from a Swiss Architect, Emile Vogt, with the actual construction supervised by Jerusalem architect Benjamin Chaiken.
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Encyclopedia
The King David Hotel is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem, Israel. The hotel was built with locally quarried pink limestone and opened in 1931. It was founded by Frank Goldsmith, father of the billionaire investor, Sir James Goldsmith. The King David Hotel is now a Jerusalem landmark and one of Israel's most famous hotels. It is owned and operated by the Dan Hotels group.
Architecture
The design for the hotel was commissioned from a Swiss Architect, Emile Vogt, with the actual construction supervised by Jerusalem architect Benjamin Chaiken. According to Hebrew University professor Ruth Kark, Vogt's approach was typical of European architects who, commissioned to design buildings in Jerusalem, incorporated "Eastern-style domes, arches, various kinds of different-colored stone, and interior decorations with religious symbos and inscriptions," in buildings whose strict symmetry marks them indelibly as European. The public rooms were decorated by G.G. Hufschmid in motifs taken from Assyrian, Hittite, Phoenician and Muslim buildings in an effort to evoke a "Biblical" style. Hufschmid, also Swiss, stated that his intention was "to evoke by reminiscence the ancient Semitic style and the ambiance of the glorious period of King David."
History
In 1929, Palestine Hotels Ltd. purchased on Jerusalem's Julian’s Way, today King David Street. Half the construction costs were paid by Albert Mosseri, an affluent Egyptian Jewish banker and director of the National Bank of Egypt, and another 46% by other wealthy Cairo Jews. The approximately 4% remaining was paid by the National Bank, which purchased 693 shares of the company between 1934 and 1943.
From its earliest days, the King David Hotel hosted royalty: the dowager empress of Persia, queen mother Nazli of Egypt and King Abdullah I of Jordan stayed at the hotel, and three heads of state forced to flee their countries took up residence there: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, forced to abdicate in 1931, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, driven out by the Italians in 1936, and King George II of Greece who set up his government in exile at the hotel after the Nazi occupation of his country in 1942.
During the British Mandate, the southern wing of the hotel was turned into a British administrative and military headquarters.
'Gidi' Paglin, the Chief of Operations of the Irgun, developed a remote-controlled mortar with a range of four miles, which was nicknamed the V3 by British military engineers. In 1945, after they had been used to bombard some police stations, six V3s were buried in the olive grove park south of the King David Hotel, three being aimed at the government printing press and three at the hotel itself. The intention was to fire them on the King's birthday, but the Haganah learned about the plan and warned the British through Teddy Kollek of the Jewish Agency. Army sappers dug them up. On another occasion and during a smaller-scale attack, members of an unknown group threw grenades at the hotel, but missed.
In July 1946 it was blown up by the Irgun, a militant Zionist group led by Menachem Begin. 91 people died and 45 people were injured.
On May 4, 1948, when the British flag was lowered, the building became a Jewish stronghold. At the end of the Israeli War of Independence, the hotel found itself overlooking "no-man’s land" on the armistice line that divided Jerusalem into Israeli and Jordanian territory. It was purchased by the Dan Hotels chain in 1958. The film Exodus was shot at the hotel in 1960. When Jerusalem was reunited following the 1967 Six-Day War, the hotel was expanded, with two additional floors.
King David Hotel today
Today, the King David Hotel is part of the Dan Hotel Chain, and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World and continues to accommodate foreign heads of state and diplomats visiting Israel. Amongst the hotel's more famous guests are King George V; Jordan’s King Hussein; U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (as well as then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama); British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair; the Prince of Wales; Elizabeth Taylor; Richard Dreyfus; Richard Gere; and Madonna.
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