The Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv is a large hotel on Hayarkon Street in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

History

First Hotel

The first Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel was located 1 mile north of today's hotel, on the north side of Independence Park. The hotel was originally designed in 1948 as the Nordau Plaza Hotel, and construction was 80 percent completed in 1952, when it was halted. The incomplete shell was acquired by Chicago-based investors in 1957, who planned to complete it, but that project collapsed. It was finally bought by a Milwaukee-based group, which completed the $4,500,000, 220-room, 7-story hotel. It opened in March 1961 as the Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel, the first Sheraton hotel outside the US and Canada. The 16th Chess Olympiad was held at the Sheraton-Tel Aviv in 1964. A 136-room wing was added to the hotel in November 1970. The Sheraton was renamed the Pal Hotel in 1974 and demolished in 1991. The site remains vacant today, but the adjacent beach is still known locally as ''Sheraton Beach''.

Current Hotel

The current hotel was built by

Ignatz Bubis Ignatz Bubis (12 January 1927 – 13 August 1999), German Jewish leader, was the influential chairman (and later president) of the Central Council of Jews in Germany (''Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland'') from 1992 to 1999. In this capacity h ...

and Emilio Bruns, and designed by Werner Joseph Wittkower (who had also designed the 1961 hotel) and Yaakov Rechter. It opened on March 12, 1977 as the Tel Aviv-Sheraton Hotel and was later known as the Sheraton Tel Aviv Hotel & Towers and then the Sheraton Tel Aviv Hotel. It was extensively renovated in 2022 and was renamed the Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv in 2023.

The site

A structure known as the ''Red House'' previously stood on the site of the current hotel. It was constructed in 1926 and served as the seat of the city council, and later the headquarters of the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

and the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, which coordinated the smuggling of illegal Jewish immigrants into British

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. During the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, the Red House served as the headquarters of

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...

and the supreme command of the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

. After the war, it was briefly the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Red House was demolished to build the hotel. A plaque at the entrance to the hotel commemorates its history.

Gallery

Image:Tel_Aviv_Beach.jpg, Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv seen from the beach Image:Tel_Aviv_front_de_mer.JPG, Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv Image:Sheraton_Tel_Aviv.jpg, Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv Image:Memorial_plaque_to_the_%22Red_House%22_at_the_entrance_of_Sheraton_hotel_in_Tel_Aviv.JPG, Memorial plaque to the ''Red House'' at the entrance of Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv Image:Tel Aviv-Yafo (997008136391505171).jpg, The partially completed Nordau Plaza Hotel, 1952. Later completed as the first Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel Image:Flickr - Government Press Office (GPO) - Gottex Bathing Suits.jpg, Models posing by the pool of the first Sheraton-Tel Aviv Hotel, July 1961 Image:Ben Gurion and the winning USSR team - Chess Olympiad 1964.jpg,

with the winning Soviet team at the 16th Chess Olympiad, held at the first Sheraton in 1964 Image:Sweden v Israel - Chess Olympiad 1964.jpg, Sweden playing Israel at the 16th Chess Olympiad, held at the first Sheraton in 1964

References

External links

*
Sheraton Grand Tel Aviv official website
{{Coord, 32.0817, N, 34.7678, E, source:wikidata, display=title Hotels established in 1977 Hotel buildings completed in 1977 Hotels in Tel Aviv Sheraton hotels 1977 establishments in Israel Yaakov Rechter buildings