The best surf & design hotels · Essaouira
L'Heure Bleue Palais
The building was a 19th-century governor's palace, then an orphanage, then thirty years of abandonment before the Azoulay family bought it in 2000 and spent four years restoring it. The artisans came from across Morocco — tiles from Fez, terracotta from Meknès, passementerie from Rabat — because the Azoulays understood that a building with this kind of history requires materials with equivalent provenance. Thirty-three rooms across four design schemes: African, Portuguese, colonial English, and Oriental. Cedar wood, jewel-toned fabrics, fireplaces, shuttered windows onto a central courtyard of palm trees and day-beds. Relais & Châteaux. Michelin Guide listed. The rooftop heated pool overlooks the medina. The beach is 400 metres away.
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The hotel
The design
Tiles from Fez. Terracotta from Meknès. Passementerie from Rabat. The restoration took four years.
The renovation mobilised artisans from across Morocco — each material sourced from its place of craft origin, each element chosen for what it added to a 19th-century structure that already had a point of view. The cedar wood, restored rather than replaced, runs through the original public rooms. The courtyard's 1880s bones are intact, now framed by the Azoulay family's four-decade hospitality career. M&M Smith listed.
The design
Tiles from Fez. Terracotta from Meknès. Passementerie from Rabat. The restoration took four years.
The renovation mobilised artisans from across Morocco — each material sourced from its place of craft origin, each element chosen for what it added to a 19th-century structure that already had a point of view. The cedar wood, restored rather than replaced, runs through the original public rooms. The courtyard's 1880s bones are intact, now framed by the Azoulay family's four-decade hospitality career. M&M Smith listed.
