About the House
Located an easy 15 minute drive from the Essaouira medina, in the tiny hamlet of Douar Laaraich, Villa Noor Essaouira is the result of a collaboration between ourselves, local builders, and long-time Essaouira resident, the Scottish interior designer John Quinn whose eye for light and form captivated us long before we moved in.
We bought it from a couple who had built the foundation of the house. It had been left for years and become a ruin when they decided to sell. This gave us a blank canvas to work with and enabled us to use lots of traditional Moroccan materials like tadelakt (polished plaster) and bejmat (terracotta tiles), without compromising on a style that said “us”. Our architects found ingenious ways of drawing light into the house through voluminous, cupola skylights in the main living areas. John smoothed out the hard edges of a blocky living and dining room with curvaceous room dividers and built-in banquettes.
The furniture is a combination of pieces from Mid Century Maroc, treasures unearthed from Mustafa Blaoui in Marrakech – he is really the godfather of interior design stores in Morocco – and found items in little souks and tiny stores on the roadside from our travels around Morocco. We also commissioned a lot of handmade items from local craftsmen including our bed frames, some faux Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs, and the curvy sofa from Les Dix Doigts, Marrakech. Shopping locally means the house, despite being very contemporary, looks and feels very much of place.
It was also important to us to bring the outside in everywhere we could. Long before even the basics were finished, I would walk through the space and think “I'm flying, I’m like the wind.” I still feel that way today, especially when I’m alone and the sound of birdsong becomes the playlist. What we collectively achieved was a proper inside outside house, filled with a light and a sense there are no barriers. So, if you’re sitting in the snug, you’ve still got a beautiful long alley of a view that goes all the way out to the Thuya forest, giving the place the feeling of floating and groundedness. There’s nowhere I feel more peaceful, nor open. As one guest said, when I’m here “I can dream”.
