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Nothing has changed and everything has changed since the hotel first opened in 1931. Built by the Mosseri family, a clan of Egyptian Jews whose holdings included Egyptian Hotels Ltd. (the legendary Shepheard's in Cairo and Mena House in Giza), it became the first modern hotel in what was then called Palestine. In addition to the Mosseri family, shares in the new Palestine Hotels were held by Baron Edmond de Rothschild's Palestine Jewish Colonization Association and the Palestine Economic Corporation, established in the United States by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, financier Felix Warburg and others. For $150,000 they purchased 4.5 acres of land from the Greek Orthodox Church and proceeded to build the rectangular, four-story building. Its Swiss decorator was instructed to "evoke by reminiscence, the ancient Semitic style and the ambiance of the glorious period of King David." Thus the spacious lobby, restored in 1948 after the bombing by Irgun, the Jewish underground in the post W.W. II years, bears the original Assyrian, Hittite, Phoenician, Egyptian and Greek-Syrian motifs on its pillars and on moldings around the ceilings. In fact every subsequent renovation and improvement undertaken by the Federmann family, owners of The Dans of Israel Hotels and Resorts, who purchased the hotel in 1956, has maintained the integrity of that decor. Here the intense colors of the Middle East--azure and brick red--as well as the creamy beige of Jerusalem illuminated by a combination of discrete gilt edging and soft yellow light aglow in Art Deco lamps, create an environment at once elegant and alive. Marble floors in the lobby, parquet in the reading room, tapestries on the walls and bowls of flowers arranged by the resident floral designer, Rafi, all combine harmoniously into a perfect backdrop for the intrigue, the tough negotiations and the lively parties that are part of King David's mystique.