The Saadeh family acquired the hotel in 1960 from the Ramallah Khalaf family who owned the business from 1950-1960. The Saadeh family is originally from Birzeit near Ramallah. However, Sami Saadeh who originally bought the business was working at the ICP (Iraqi Petroleum Company) in Haifa from the 1930's till 1956. He moved to Lebanon in the aftermath of the 1948 war and the creation of the State of Israel in an attempt to stay with the company which later transferred him to its offices in Jordan. In 1960 he married Julia Shaer from Beit Jala near Bethlehem, moved back to Jerusalem with his brother Zaki Saadeh. Together they started both the Ritz Hotel (a hundred room facility) and the Jerusalem Hotel, a cozy and small mansion functioning as a pension. 

In 1967, while the family was spending time in Birzeit at Sami's family home, the six day war erupted. Amidst the chaos Sami managed to take his family back to Jerusalem crossing a number of check points belonging to either the Jordanian or the Israeli armies. When he and his family eventually made it to Jerusalem, they found their house ransacked and the hotel partially destroyed and burnt by the cross fire between the Jordanian and the Israeli armies. 

In 1980 Sami was diagnosed with Parkinson and the management of the hotel was turned over to a specialized hotel services company until Raed, Sami's son returned from his studies in the United States in 1990 and decided to take back the hotel into the Saadeh Family. Raed decided to convert the hotel into a heritage haven in 1993 bringing out its unique Jerusalem character while accentuating it with a number of middle eastern decorative elements.

Today, Raed, his son Sami, his brother Rober, his sister Hanan and his cousin Shirin are running the hotel and are keen to make your stay and experience as comfortable and as enjoyable possible.