Hidden within Jerusalem’s twisted cobble stone streets lies one of the Middle East’s most luxurious and storied hotels, the American Colony.

It’s been voted the “Best Hotel in the Middle East” by Condé Nast Traveler and is a rarity in the region for being a member of the elite Relais & Châteaux association. Thumbing through the pages of its guest books reads like a who’s who of the last century. Sir Winston Churchill, Lauren Bacall, Peter O’Toole, Marc Chagall, and Richard Gere are just a few of its famous guests.

Yet despite such notoriety, not many Arab guests have set foot in it, let alone know of its existence. Apart from Palestinians living in the country, travel restrictions to Israel and a long history of tensions in the region, have deterred many would be Middle Eastern tourists from venturing into this ancient city. But even more intriguing perhaps is Valentine Vester, the hotel’s proprietor, who passed away last week at the age of 96.

Mrs. Vester was one of those rare beings; the last of a generation to have bared witness to much of the upheavals that shaped the modern Middle East. The hotel, which she presided over like a private kingdom, is the last link to a more genteel time in Jerusalem’s history. A time before the Balfour Declaration, the end of the British Mandate in 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which altered the city’s landscape.

Vester’s connection to the Middle East was already established by the time she was born in Yorkshire, England in 1912. Her mother's half-sister was Gertrude Bell, the renowned British diplomat and archeologist who helped create the modern state of Iraq after World War I. While her uncle Ernest Richmond, worked in the British administration of the Holy Land between the world wars. During that period he introduced the young Valentine to King Abdullah of Transjordan.

She married Horatio Spafford, a Jerusalem-born British lawyer and heir to the American Colony.  By the time they had arrived in Jerusalem in 1963, the legendary hotel was a failing enterprise.  Vester recalled that "it was simpler then, and Jerusalem was a dear little town, a very social town." Even before the concept of a boutique hotel existed, they set about transforming the American Colony into the most luxurious and tranquil oasis in the city. "I never thought to create a luxury hotel, just a real one," said Vester.

The American Colony, housed in the former palace of a pasha, was purchased by Horatio’s grandparents in 1896. Built out of honey hued Jerusalem stone and boasting sumptuous interiors that have changed little in the Colony’s 122 year’s of existence, it is a reminder of the forgotten palaces of Palestine. These mansions, built in the early to late 19th century, are a reminder that Palestine once boasted a thriving Arab bourgeoisie and landowning class.

One of the hotel’s earliest and most famous guests was T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, who regularly dined at the hotel’s restaurant, as well as played goalkeeper in the soccer matches that took place where the swimming pool is today.

In this beautiful city with a divided soul, Valentine Vester’s most lasting legacy may prove to be the hotel itself, which has come to symbolize an oasis of neutrality and one of the few places in Jerusalem where Palestinians, Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and Christians can meet on common ground.  "We've tried very hard to be neutral," Vester once said. Today the American Colony serves as the posh headquarters for Jerusalem’s political elite and the international journalists who follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the heart of the American Colony lies its most intriguing space, the legendary Cellar Bar. Like Harry’s Bar in Venice or the bar of the Ritz in Paris, the Cellar is the kind of place that’s steeped in history and international intrigue. The bar is located in a former cistern of low vaulted ceilings, stone floors, and intimate seating areas dimly lit by flickering oil lamps. Here one can often find the city’s political agents, foreign correspondents, and the well-born sons and daughters of East Jerusalem, all holding court over the world’s most complex diplomatic and political scene.

This of course made for interesting eavesdropping; which may explain why Graham Greene, could often be found drinking here amongst the Cellar’s stone walls. Greene once dubbed Jerusalem “the world capital of intrigue”, and the Cellar provided him with plenty of material for his novels and stories which would have no doubt pleased the hotel’s late owner.

Valentine Vester was buried on June 22 at the historic American Colony cemetery on Jerusalem's Mt. Scopus, alongside her husband who died in 1985.

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