My Marrakesh

Peacock Pavilions: our Marrakech home, too

Dear friends,

I am signing off for the holiday season.  I hope by the time that you are reading this, your bellies are full, your presents unwrapped, and your children quietly playing with their gifts and tidying up after themselves  (when it comes to the latter, a girl can only dream....). 

Perhaps most importantly, here's to wishing you all magical things in the new year.  May you find the discipline to do less of the things that make you feel bad (procrastinating, gossiping, eating junk food, arguing needlessly with your spouse....), and find the courage to do more of the things that make you feel good (being kind, exercising, sleeping more, trying new things.... ) .  Or whatever it is that's right for you.

As for me, I have many hopes for 2008.  Perhaps my biggest is to move into a new house at Peacock Pavilions.   Years of rented homes are taking their toll.  (Do you remember my house insomnia? ) We're still quite a ways away, but I thought I would give you a glimpse of how things are shaping up.

See you in the new year.

With love,

Maryam in Marrakech

The private space of our house - here will be the bedrooms.  Our bedroom is on the top floor, flanked by terraces and with covered, public walkways in front.  No doors and windows yet.  But look at all the arches running down the halls - so pretty.  They will all face out on the pool.  Some day, some day....

Our house is shaped like an L.  Here you can see where the private space joins the public space. My office is in the tower (oh yay!).

Here is the roof over the public space, with the beautiful petaled dome with its peep holes that architect husband Chris has designed.     Didn't I marry the right man?

All the terraces on the roof link up for over 2000 sq feet of terrace.  It's an incredible party space, perhaps for those who want to have a special event at Peacock Pavilions.  There's a rooftop kitchen, a rooftop bathroom and plenty of room for a bar and a band. What do you think?  A crazy blog party.....?  Will you come?

A view from the front with the beloved olive trees.

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Merry, merry, darling blog friends.  Thank you so much for your ongoing support and friendship.

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P.S.  Still looking for kind couriers coming to Marrakech.  I have oodles of things to bring out for Peacock Pavilions.  If you have extra room in one of your suitcases, please let me know, and I will ship stuff right to your door.  Would love to meet up when you are here for a mint tea.  Thank you.

Morocco: and the little weekend getaway place

Hello there, dear. So glad you could join me. I thought I would take you shopping for a small Moroccan palace today. Now don’t just stand there with that look on your face. You know, places to go and people to meet....

Well, here we are at the palace -- it's a 4 and half hour drive from Marrakesh. Just pretend you're someone important.  Uh-oh….no drawbridge.  I suppose that’s okay.  A moat is really so inconvenient in this day and age.  Besides where would you find the alligators to fill it? 

Hmmm...this is not very Moroccan looking -- just proving that there is something for everyone in this country.  And for a palace, it's not really palatial  (where are the domes?  the spires?), although it is enooooooooormous.  The gardens are looking quite nice; I can see the potential for outdoor mint tea parties. But let’s not dawdle, let’s go inside.  Oh my, three salons (ahem, those would be living rooms or lounges to you) which total 10,000 square feet.  Imagine, each salon is bigger than most houses...! The fabulous soirees you could have – salsa! belly dancing! I’m not so sure about these gold chairs everywhere, however. But no worries -- they can be swapped out for suede poufs in muted colors. You could have the world’s most hipster palace -- just think of it!  Not sure what you would do with all these bedrooms but  I’m rather fond of this white bed -- so see if you can keep it when you negotiate for purchase, will you?

And what do you know -- there is even a separate three bedroom mini-palace on the premises for when those irksome in-laws arrive…How very convenient.

Eeek, they’re kicking us out. I'm not sure what that "inappropriate attire" reference was all about. Next time, maybe we shouldn’t wear T-shirts and flip flops. But never fear, money talks.  So good luck with the realtor. You can chat with him about this property and others right here.

And let me know when you move in, so we can meet up. You could even come to Marrakesh for a long weekend – I’m sure you’ll need a break from wearing that silly tiara all the time, after all.:-)

Morocco: The Marrakech suburbs...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in the upscale suburbs of Marrakesh?  Even for a minute?  Here is your chance. 

Not too long ago, we had dinner with our Venezualen friend, Elka, and her French husband, Cyril.  They live in a gated community called Domaine D'Abrage.  It is located about 5 miles outside of Marrakesh. Domaine D'Abraj is a group of approximately 18-20 villas.  Buying a villa will run you about $500,000-$650,000.  Villas also can be rented for short or long-term stays. Additionally, there is a hotel, restaurant and spa on the grounds.  It is a very peaceful location and the houses don't have the "overdone" look that you sometimes see in Marrakesh.  But don't take it from me...go visit the site on line and see for yourself here.  I would love to know what you think!

Morocco: a tale of Rapunzel revisited

Work.  That’s what we do… eight hours a day if we are lucky and probably more if you are like me.  Now listen, I am not knocking work.  If I won the lottery, yes I would take a sabbatical for six months or maybe…maybe a year (she says in a hushed whisper) so I could find time to learn a new language, do more art, and blog more…But then I would be right back at it – work that is.

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I count myself blessed to have a job that I like and great colleagues.  Now you might not know that my work world is pretty virtual.  Living in Marrakesh, I telecommute almost all of the time in between business trips and meetings here and there.  So my home office is where I spend most of my day, tapping away at my beloved laptop, and peering out the window.  So when Chris asked what was important to me when designing our new home, I answered without hesitation that I wanted nothing less than the most beautiful office in the world.  I wanted lots of light and an incredible view, and I wanted something special, verrrrrry special.  Well, you know my husband – he looked perplexed for about ten seconds but then was off to his great mass of penciled house designs where he began the incantations required of the design magic that he does.  The new ideas then were streamed into the digital version of the house’s master plan.  And so what was the end result, you ask?  Well, let’s just say that he turned me into a liberated version of Rapunzel.

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My office, you see, will be in a tower.  Now that might sound, as one says in diplomatic-speak, a bit unusual.  But actually, in its own funny way, it is quite Moroccan.  In the South of the country I had long admired the beautiful fortresses, or Kasbahs that one sees dotting the skyline.  These fortresses were punctuated with a series of tower-like structures, look-outs I suppose.  When we had originally started designing the house, I had thought that I wanted a Kasbah look but it just didn’t end up working with the open plan that I also wanted.  And so my Kasbah had been relegated to the bottom of the stack of house design scribbles.

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But have you noticed that life has a funny way of working itself out if you just stick with it?  Because it now appears that I will be rocking the Kasbah, or at least just a little. 

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The bad news is that I have no spinning wheel or whatever it was that Rapunzel’s story prescribed.  Nor could my hair be described as long golden tresses (but rather brown and shoulder length, of the most ordinary kind).  But the good news is that in Rapunzel’s tale revisited, such requirements have disappeared.  While the tower remains, the door is never locked.  And stairs really are so much more practical when one has to exit in comparison to looks to the horizon for prince charming.  Frankly, I suspect Rapunzel is going to fend for herself rather well this time around – in a post-feminist, Moroccan kind of way.  What do you think?

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Painting by Timmy Mallett

Morocco: Wondering if you had time to come over today

I thought I would invite you into my living room in Marrakech today.  Come on, don’t be shy.  Pull up a chair.  By now, if we had been in contact this much in the non-cyber world, I would have invited you at least over for a drink. So I thought that I would do that on line.  Do you have a minute?  I’d love to get to know you better.

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Now, you have seen our plans for a house and you know that we are planning to build something special.  But in the mean time, we are living in a place that couldn’t be described as much more than “ramshackle.”  I hope you don’t mind.  As you can see, we are very much regular folk.  We have done our best to decorate the place given its current state, a genre I like to call “Moroccan ruin.”  That means strategically putting up paintings to hide the holes in the walls.  That means trying to distract you from looking at the pitted floors with our collection of Moroccan pottery.  Most of our stuff is in storage, waiting for our “real house.”  And so we have made do with some odds and ends. 

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We have made a lot of furniture ourselves from salvage – an old ceiling panel is now a coffee table, one side table is the hand carved side of an old Moroccan banquette.  The other side table is made from a huge fossil we bought by the side of the road from a man in the Atlas Mountains. Over our fireplace is a lintel with Arabic writing from some old Moroccan home. My husband designed the couch, inspired by ones he had seen in books of Indonesian homes.  It is upholstered with an ancient Moroccan blanket we found in a heap in a corner antique store.  On the bolster is an embroidery I bought in Azerbaijan.  We also have in our living room, the largest pouf yet known to mankind. Our art is from Morocco and elsewhere.

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As you can see, no Crate and Barrel near by, no Pottery Barn. Does it look a bit strange to you? 

What's it look like in your living room?  Please tell me, if we met in real life, would you invite me over to your home, too?

Morocco and our Moroccan house design

So now getting back to the Marrakech house design (so exciting!).  Actually, that would be the houseS design - we decided to go for a three house concept: one that was to be our own house and two that were to be guest houses.  Our own house would have five bedrooms.  And both the guest houses together would have five bedrooms.  Ten bedrooms…..oh my, it makes me feel so Dallas.  I wouldn’t be surprised if JR shows up any minute.   
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Let me talk a little more about our house first.  The concept was to have a house shaped like an L. One side of the L would be the living space or public area, and the other side of the L would be the bedrooms, or private area. The L would wrap around a pool that would be right outside. On the other side of the L would be one separate guest house, which would in effect turn the L into a U.  Are you following?  There also would be an open pool cabana with beds (!!!) for lounging after your swim while swilling your freshly squeezed orange juice or your lemon spa tea  – very swanky. 
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The heart of the house would be a kind of great room, approximately 1000 square feet with ceilings 16 feet high.   Over 400 square feet in the great room would be a dome about 21 feet off the floor.  Now I know that a dome is sounding very grand and very, well you know, Vatican.  But actually domes are not uncommon in houses in Morocco – they are quite often seen in Arab architecture in general.  And I promise this one will not be gilded or have painted angels wafting in and out of clouds.   In the great room would be a huge fireplace for cozying up to in Winter – toasting marshmallows with the kids and enjoying hot toddies with friends (now, if I could only figure out what a hot toddy actually was…please post if you know…).  There would be large glass doors that would open onto a big covered patio held up with arched pillars (very Moroccan).  Doors could remain open, creating a real flow and indoor/outdoor living.  On the patio, we would lunch by the pool at our tile tables, or we would just sip wine, gossip and evade work whenever possible (Dear boss, you must know that I am 100% kidding, right?). 

There would be a separate dining room with seating for 12.  And there would be an adjacent library with our books laid out on tables, our magazines on the rungs of African ladders, and really comfortable (but tidy looking) couches that you sink into and feel like there is simply no need to ever get up.  And yet another fireplace in there ….sitting by the fireplace immersed in a good book.  What could be better?
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Yes, of course the kitchen – modern and fresh – with one of those swinging restaurant doors that you just have to push on  – so handy when you are laden down with trays of hors d’oeuvres.  On the other side of the house would be the 5 bedrooms on two floors.  Our bedroom would be on the second floor and would open on to its own terrace.  Finally, a walk in closet, enough storage, and lots of light.  Something a little glamorous.  Yes, a chandelier, too (no, I don’t mean one of those horrible chandeliers...I mean something very Elle Décor.  Can you see it?)  The children’s rooms would be airy and fun and each have an extra bed for sleepovers.  We would have one guest room and the fifth bedroom will be used as a den, with our television, etc.  4.5 bathrooms and a basement.
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On the roof, two pavillions for nighttime cocktails and viewing the stars.  We have a huge telescope since we are star and planet fanatics.  (And yes, of course there is life on Mars;-)) And now for the office.  I am not kidding you the office is the piece de resistance.  So good, so special, the only, only office of its kind… (Can you hear the fairgrounds announcer on the speaker:  “Step right up folks and see the amazing….” ).  Yes, an office so unique that it gets its own blog entry and you’ll see why, next time. 

Morocco and House Design

Here it is...a picture of our Moroccan house, our Moroccan-house-to-be.  (Click on it, to see it a little better).  For those of you who have never been to Morocco...it might seem, well...a bit much.  But I promise you, it fits right in - from the dome to the arches.  But it's still very special, to me at least, as I am sure you can understand. 

What do you think?  Please, be kind....if you can.  If you can't I will put on my bullet proof vest.  I have one left over from my trips to Iraq, deep sigh (now that's a whole other blog entry....).

Morocco: This, too, had passed

The boxes were folded and put away.  The clothes were neatly in their drawers.  The paintings were on the walls.  The rugs were down.  The shower was fixed.  The music was on. 

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Do you believe in angels?  How do you explain the friend who walks into your new living room, throws open her arms and says, “I love it,” looking you straight in the eyes?

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Did I tell you about our olive trees?  All five acres of them?  I put a post-it note on the side of my laptop screen to remind me to “Look up” – the view out my office window was better than a double scoop of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. 

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Did I mention that Skylar and Tristan were spending all their time sitting in the midst of a flock of sheep found grazing in our back yard?  Yes, those would be real sheep.  I had to admit, the lambs were awfully sweet.

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Did I disclose that I had taken unexpectedly to jumping on the kids’ trampoline?  Very high.  There were worries that the traveling circus currently in town might find out about me.

Pitch black?

How is it exactly that we had overlooked all the problems of our new house before signing the lease? How is it that we had not seen the peeling paint? The broken tile? The stained floors? The shower that didn’t work? The tiny office space? The total absence of closets? The kitchen that hadn’t been remodeled since the dawn of time? The pervasive smell of eau-de-sheep?

Hold it here, are we sure it wasn’t the house next door we saw last time?

"We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made."
~Former US Vice-President, Dan Quayle

Did I mention that the landlord was miserly and a liar?

You know when you just sit down in the middle of the floor among all the boxes and you just feel so helpless?

Morocco: Deserters. Destination...desert

I know you have been there. The boxes everywhere. The bits and pieces spilling out of closets. The sorting into piles left and right. The foisting of unwanted belongings on others. The unearthing of objects that you swear you haven’t seen for years. In short, packing moving. It’s painful. Very painful. For the first time in your life, you start contemplating having a minimalist home – you know the kind you see in magazines, the kind that has one very beautiful chair in the living room and one finely wrought bronze bowl on the floor next to the chair, and one stark and lovely black and white photograph on the wall. And that’s it – in the whole house… No seriously, for the avid collectors of stuff that we were, this packing process made us swear off buying anything ever again. Yes, I said ever (okay, that phase lasted for about 15 minutes).

Yards of bubble wrap later, we were battered and bruised. But our home finally had the sought after barren look of one of those crazy art installations – the ones that only have 516 empty picture frames (or whatever) piled up against one wall in a space the size of an air hangar. And you are milling around with a glass of wine in your hand, commenting on the insightfulness of it all.

It seemed that we were ready, finally, to move.

The only trick was that, for my work, I had to fly to Palestine immediately. And so I wouldn’t be there for the actual day of the move. I would leave it all to the skillful hands of my husband who would somehow direct and manage a group of eight brawny movers – in Moroccan dialect (umm, had he suddenly learned how to speak Moroccan dialect? Hope, hope.) Then pack our two squirrelly children in one car, while having someone else drive down to Marrakesh in our other car. And only then motor across the country, with no one to pass out cookies incessantly to appease the underage masses in our backseat. Oh my…. Somehow, and it is not entirely clear to me how, he managed. Yep, the stuff of legends.