Elma is a hotel and arts complex that uniquely combines luxurious hotel accommodation with the best in international music, plastic and performing arts. Spanning more than 100 acres, Elma stands on the edge of the Carmel ridge, overlooking a spectacular view of the Mediterranean coastline and a green patchwork of fields and wooded slopes. The historic building is considered one of Israel’s architectural highlights, and won its designer, Yaacov Rechter, the Israel Prize in Architecture.

After years of use following its inauguration in 1968, the magnificent building was gradually abandoned, to a point where it was scheduled for demolishing. It was at that point that Lily Elstein, a scion of the founders of Zichron Ya’acov, came to its rescue. Like her pioneer ancestors, who founded the village a hundred and forty years ago, Ms Elstein decided to undertake a pioneering mission of her own: to breathe life in the abandoned building and transform it into a hotel and arts complex. Ms. Elstein acquired the place in 2005, and founded Elma.