Riad Entrance hallway & Bridget Riley artwork.jpg)
Riad interior garden courtyard.jpg)
Courtyard family & friends.jpg)
Courtyard interior by night.jpg)
Wall decoration.jpg)
Garden pool & Riad arches.jpg)
Turquoise Tadelakt room.jpg)
60ft golf pit on terrace.jpg)
Terrace seating.jpg)
1930’s reproduction lamps .jpg)
Orange tadelakt room & glass studded decoration.jpg)
Vintage chair & herringbone patterned emerald green tiled flooring.jpg)
Pink Boudoir.jpg)
Pink Boudoir artwork.jpg)
Pink Boudoir.jpg)
Arabic domed terracotta window frame.jpg)
Wall decoration made of wood.jpg)
Purple Tadelakt room.jpg)
Brown Tadelakt room.jpg)
Green Tadelakt bathroom.jpg)
Brown Tadelakt room fireplace.jpg)
Ribbed plaster ceiling .jpg)
Red walls made from hand stitched camel leather.jpg)
Marrakech streets
Programme 6
Overview
A combination of Asian glamour and pedigreed European-style creature comforts, the dark unassuming doorway of Riad El Fenn, five minutes from the main square in the Medina, does little to give away what lies beyond.
Owners
Vanessa Branson (sister of Richard) and her business partner, Howell James, stumbled on this large run-down riad town house when they became lost when returning to their hotel in the summer of 2002. A riad is a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden, and it has a central courtyard within a home. The word riad comes from the Arabian term for garden, "ryad". El Fenn means ‘art' in Arabic and ‘hip' in the local slang.
History
Originally a crumbling old family home built by a caid (a trader, with duties within the community) in 1825, the property was purchased as a near-derelict ruin in February 2002 by Branson and James.
Features
Even as you enter the shaded ruby entrance, there's no indication that every corner you turn within reveals a contrasting visual feast. Labyrinthine, with two inner courtyards, each patch of this nine-roomed property is completely different. Antique carved wooden doorstep, green-tiled walkways, tadelakt with ivory detail, 1940s chairs, black marble, a screening room, and a rose garden! The most 'rock star' suite is the 'Douira', a duplex with a cubbyhole in which to watch television, a master bedroom on the mezzanine upstairs, and then its own terrace with a plunge pool at the top.