It is a rarity in Marrakech to find an old house with a large, mature garden that is a five-minute machine from Medina. Wide, shady lawns, numerous terraces, 150-year-old olive and Pistachio trees: If there are all these, the chances are to reach it, you are looking a little from a slogan in 54 square miles of Palraeie, the oasis planted by the almorvid dynasty in the 11th century.
But in Jnane Rumi, an 11-bedroom wealth owned by Dutch art lawyer Gert-Jan Van Den Bergh and his wife, Corinne, this situation-Arcadian Maghrebi Bliss, a simple hop away from action Souk-is a happy reality. Architectural cachet is another, as is the extraordinary collection of North African art wealth, showing the region’s most promising talent and storytellers. Jnane Rumi can be taken for vacation or private events; When it is not, the happy reality becomes that of a home hotel, with 11 rooms separated between the main villa, the three garden pavilions and a private annex with a pool, all offer unique configurations of color, art, light and nature.
Van Den Bergh first sight of that eight years ago, during a search for a second family home; Initially, he and Corinne spent weeks in Medina, weighing the idea of life there while centered on a Riyadh. “Determining UNESCO, all that energy … the visit is great,” he says. “But living there was a little of everything – noise, pollution, tourists.” This is how the search began further; Van Den Bergh estimates that they saw about 20 places before they came on Jnane Rumi. “Either the house was excellent, but the land was at best; or, the opposite.”
It was the garden that overwhelmed it – large, green, shadowed by the large old palms and cedar, sketched here and there with bougainvillea flurries, all anchored by a long pool with turquoise chevron models. But the house was also unique: “It was a bungalow, essentially – elegant, four bedrooms, not too large – but one of the five oldest houses in the whole palmaie.” It was created in the middle of the middle century by Charles Boccara, the Tunisian architect who also designed the Royal Theater. “Boccara himself lived here for years, and after him Moroccan sociologist Paul Pasco, and all kinds of artists and intellectuals were always passing.”
The seven -year -old journey to the two -storey villa and the independent pavilions that today make up the property was challenging. Van Den Bergh found an aesthetic ally in the architect Nicolas Bodé, a Boccara prosthesis, which helped him elaborate on Boccara’s style on a much larger trail. But there were obstacles, including the discovery, halfway through the addition of the second floor, Boccara had built his beautiful home sanis foundation. The holidays applied gave the Van De Berghs occasion to rethink their purpose: “We realized that we had an opportunity, and the means, to create something much more than the house we would imagine. We could make a place that would feed all our cultural interests and make them accessible to others” – something “to a much greater degree” than just a second home.
“I first heard from Gert in January 2020,” says Moroccan artist Samy Snoussi. “The message read something like,“ I’m opening a house-hotel in Marrakech, and I’m looking for a curator. “Snoussi, who had zero curatorial experience at the time, was intrigued:” I thought I would probably bring some parts and that would be it, one. But soon it became clear that this was someone who saw where the art world was in Morocco, and who understood what he had in terms of potential with Jnane Rumi, who was (a place) to really make a cultural weather here. “
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“There is a Moroccan-Holandene art scene in Amsterdam that is really alive,” says Van Den Bergh. “Time and again I heard,” You are sitting in a gold mine – you can build a bridge between Western Europe and North Africa, you have to do something with this (opportunity). “Given my country in the Dutch culture” -van den Bergh is one of the precursor specialists of European return and sits on various art boards in the Netherlands-“seemed primary. And Samy was born to cure,” he adds.
“Himself, many of these artists, we are constantly thinking about what it means to be African and international at the same time,” Snoussi says. “Samir Tumi (alias iramo), for example, grew very weak in Casablanca; it works hard with soap because it is ‘weak’ material and is clearly linked to its roots. Consisting of honey-colored soap rods placed on a round panel, its left-hand-maghreb-left section is deeply carved with detailed decorative scenario that is switched on in driving light.
Hanging on both sides of a large fireplace in the Grand Salon are two tapestries: One, a Khayamiya panel from Morocco and French artist based in Paris Louis Bartélemy, expressly commissioned for Jnane Rumi. The other is a silk embroidery by Margaux Dery born in Paris, an artist now based in Massa, southern Morocco; It took her and more than five embroidery there six months to finish.
Elsewhere in the house, works of art are focal points, on their own or in dialogue; They all co-exist with multi-colored tile floors and an extremely delicious antique mixture, textiles and carpets. Most of it is derived from the private warehouses of Mustapha Blaoui, the owner of the trésrs des nomades in Medina, a name known to any interior designer from Pimlico to Palm Beach. The décor was, says Van Den Bergh, a “group effort” that joined for months.
But for all the meticulous cure, Jnane Rumi feels like nothing if not a home to relax. To rest through the landing rooms, as kaabi Wafts music quietly in the breeze coming through open French doors, and you find some private corners you can stop, sit down, read a novel – there are dozens of them in different languages on the whole house – or throw a mint tea. Ask Armir, the invited relationship manager, for whatever you want (some brieate make snacks, a fresh green juice, a gin and tonic) and that it is served wherever you want it (from the pool, on one of the tables under the cedar, on the shady terrace of your room, half complicated in the wood -made wood menuchor valences). Night when you go to bed, the fire is already lit in your room; In the morning, silver coffee dishes are brought to your door if you like. Beyond how nice it is to look at everything, the welcome that Van Den Bergh’s offer and his team is the winning thing – both original and elegant.
This hospitality lies in the kitchen, where Van Den Bergh has registered the help of Karin Gaasterland, formerly the owner of the Balthazar Keuken chef, a 10 -seat restaurant in charge of Amsterdam’s best lists since opening in 1995. In front of the paperGaasterland has formed Moroccan products, farms and food traditions, as it has been advised for Vanessa Branson in 2018 in a total menu recreation in El Fenn, its Moragech Riad.
For months, Gaasterland has collaborated with Saida Ait Ben Hamed, the chef of Jnane Rumi’s house, playing with recipes and manipulating ingredients, deconstructing traditional dishes and restoring them again. Fragrances are often undoubtedly in the country, but appear in clean, fresh configurations. Like the rest of Jnane Rumi, it feels like a new takeover in Morocco; And of course, it’s all nice to see.
Rooms from 500 € including breakfast; visit JNANERUMI.com For prices for exclusive purchase
