Valentine Vester | Hotel proprietor, 96
Valentine Vester, 96, who witnessed history as the proprietor of one of the Middle East's most storied hotels, has died.
JERUSALEM - Valentine Vester, 96, who witnessed history as the proprietor of one of the Middle East's most storied hotels, has died.
Mrs. Vester spent the last years of her life in an apartment on the manicured grounds of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel, on the dividing line between the city's Arab and Jewish sections, has served for decades as a favorite hangout for diplomats and foreign correspondents and as a backdrop for political intrigue.
Mrs. Vester was born in England and came to Jerusalem in the early 1960s with her husband, Horatio, the grandson of the Colony's founders. Her son, Nicholas, said that they "made this place into a global landmark by their wit and by being interesting enough that people would travel a long way to see them."
She lived through much of the upheaval that shaped the modern Mideast. In 1967, she saw her hotel move from Jordanian to Israeli control. The owners always considered the hotel neutral ground. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators secretly drafted parts of the 1993 Oslo peace accords at the hotel. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now a Mideast envoy, has a suite of rooms on the top floor. Mrs. Vester will be buried in the American Colony cemetery alongside her husband. - AP