Elma Hotel: A different type of break for calm and culture

Elma is built in a unique architectural style that hugs the undulating hillside contours and blends into the landscape while maintaining an unmistakable presence.

By ORI LEWIS
COCKTAILS ON the balcony with Zichron Ya’acov in the background. (photo credit: ORI LEWIS)
COCKTAILS ON the balcony with Zichron Ya’acov in the background.
(photo credit: ORI LEWIS)
Times of calm, sadly, not of the type that we have known in recent days, call for an opportunity to enhance and maximize the experience of serenity. A special place to do this is the one-of-a-kind Elma Hotel in Zichron Ya’acov on the southwestern slopes of Mount Carmel.
Elma is built in a unique architectural style that hugs the undulating hillside contours and blends into the landscape while maintaining an unmistakable presence. It was designed by famed Israeli architect Yaakov Rechter.
It was established as a convalescent home by the Histadrut’s Mivtahim pension fund in 1968 to serve as a place of R&R for fatigued laborers who toiled all year long to build the fledgling state. They came for a heavily subsidized annual vacation of relaxation, plentiful meals and a few other distractions to recharge their batteries before returning to driving a truck, a bus or a tractor, laying a road, rolling off reels of fabric at a deafening textiles mill, operating a crane at Haifa Port, or enduring endless, tedious hours on a factory production line.
Today, the idealistic ethos that socialist Israel was built on is a fading memory and the vacation destination declined in popularity as mega hotels  for a more demanding generation of Israelis began to spring up in Eilat.
This unique structure that earned Rechter the Israel Prize was condemned for demolition so that the land could be cleared for property developers to build exclusive homes for the very wealthy and make a tidy sum for themselves.
The two-story hotel building that snakes along the hillside was built with broad, winding corridors that among today’s hotel designers would probably be considered a complete waste of space. But it was Lily Elstein, 91, a Tel Aviv patron of music and the arts, whose late husband was one of the founders of Teva, who saved the site from the wrecking ball when she bought it in 2005 with the aim of making it a very different type of hotel. The project took a whopping 10 years to complete at a cost of NIS 400 million and the ELMA (Elstein Music and Arts) Luxury Hotel was born.
It boasts over 500 works of art from Elstein’s private collection. One of the hotel’s highlights is a colossal Greek-style marble that she commissioned from Israeli artist Sigalit Landau, who had the work carved in Italy with the aim of filling a cultural gap in Israel.
Today, not only architects, but art experts, too, can wax lyrical about this building and its contents thanks to Elstein’s vision. Her collection of modern Israeli art adorns the hotel’s corridors and public spaces and is indeed an art gallery and a hotel all in one. The hotel organizes guided tours of the art works.
Rechter’s simple, yet imaginative design allows the building to soak up the calm sea breeze and cool the soothing luxury suites that have been created from combining two original rooms into one. The old rest home once had some 200 separate small accommodations. It now has only 95, including some added in a new wing.
Lying just a few minutes’ drive from the seafront, this hotel is not intended as a primary beachgoers’ resort. It has a large outdoor swimming pool and an indoor spa and fitness center. For exercising the mind, there are quiet reading corners, hidden alcoves, lawns and places to sit and contemplate the paintings and sculptures and, not least, the structure’s simple, mesmerizing architecture, as straight lines and curves in white plaster and bare concrete blend effortlessly into each other.
Additionally, there are two auditoriums, the larger of which is a 450-seat hall where particular attention has been devoted to creating superb acoustics. It has a modern organ designed by Orgelbau Klais Bonn, one of the world’s leading organ builders, and this is probably the only organ built in Israel for public performances that is not housed in a church.
The hall has hosted many classical music concerts and chamber ensembles and has a resident organist, Roman Krasnovsky of Karmiel.
ON THE lighter side, some of the country’s top Hebrew singers and performing groups are due to play at the venue this summer through a partnership between Elma and the Zappa Group that promotes live music gigs. Boaz Sharabi, Yehoram Gaon, Aviv Gefen, Shlomo Gronich and Riki Gal are just a few who have or will take to the Elma stage in the coming weeks and months.
The experience of a quality music performance can be even more enjoyable if you stay at the hotel afterwards and save the late-night drive home. Show tickets are sold at a discount for Elma hotel guests.
The hotel’s restaurants offer superb food and a huge selection of wines from local wineries for the connoisseur, and for the uninitiated there is always somebody to offer advice.
The south Carmel ridge area is good wine country and vineyards are all around. Carmel in Zichron itself and Bat Shlomo in the old community of the same name about 15 minutes away by car are two such examples whose wines warm to the palate. The wineries offer tasting tours or an evening’s meal with a selection of wines for a fee.
Picturesque Bat Shlomo, a farming village established by Baron Rothschild in 1889 as an offshoot of Zichron also offers a few restaurants and delicious cheeses at the quaint Schwartzman Dairy.
For the more intrepid and those who have a suitable vehicle, the Carmel ridge is a place for picturesque off-road driving, but your car must be a rugged and powerful 4x4 with good ground clearance because you wouldn’t want to end up stuck, or in a ditch and put a damper on a great vacation.
Elma is a premium hotel for grown-ups, but at the moment the prices are very reasonable. For example, a one-night stay mid-week with half-board hospitality for a couple will set you back NIS 1,280 and there are opportunities to grab even lower prices, a hotel associate told The Jerusalem Post.
For more details about Elma Hotel, go to: www.elma-hotel.com; for more information about things to do and see in the area visit www.carmelim.org.il where you will find links to the sites mentioned in this article, and many others. And for the performance schedule at the Elma auditorium go to: www.zappa-club.co.il
The writer was a guest of the hotel.


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