You leave the bustle of the medina and stand suddenly in a quiet villa street, parallel to Rue Yves Saint Laurent. Behind terrazzo walls a clay-red house rises like a modernist sandcastle. Inside: smooth stone, soft walls, a staircase that seems carved from rock. Behind the Jardin Majorelle, cacti hang over the wall. Nobody is in a hurry.
The Location
Maison Brummell lies in the Majorelle district, a quiet residential quarter north of the medina, on the street parallel to Rue Yves Saint Laurent. The famous garden and the YSL Museum are minutes away on foot, the Gueliz new town with its restaurants next door, the Djemaa el-Fna a ten-minute taxi ride away. From outside, a clay-red house behind terrazzo walls, with deep arches and narrow windows, over which the palms and plants of the Majorelle garden lean. It seems closed, almost defensive, until the gate opens and the view falls inward, onto courtyards, water and green. Around it only quiet villas, no traffic, no noise.
Backstory
Behind the house stands Christian Schallert, an Austrian who moved to Barcelona in 2003 and opened the Hotel Brummell there in 2013, in a run-down building in the Poble Sec quarter. His idea: small, considered houses rather than big hotel machines, casual luxury, less shine, more soul. In 2023 he gathered it all under Brummell Projects, with houses in Barcelona, the Pyrenees and Marrakech. Maison Brummell Majorelle he had built from scratch, over three years, to host friends, family and travellers.
It was designed by the New Zealand architect Bergendy Cooke with the Moroccan architect Amine Abouraoui; local craftsmen carried out their designs for lamps, tables and beds. Schallert wanted a house that feels like a home, not a hotel, a retreat from the hectic hours of the medina.
Interior & Architecture
The house is a modernist build of Moroccan craft: terrazzo floors cast on site meet hand-smoothed tadelakt, with deep arches, alcoves modelled on mashrabiya screens and a staircase that seems hewn from rock. The wood-and-brass furniture was made by the local maker Maison Nicole, the suspension lamps come from the Italians Vesoi, the fittings from Neve, the door handles are Gio Ponti’s Lama levers; plus design classics like the chairs by Egon Eiermann and Ingo Maurer’s paper lamp.
Art hangs everywhere: photographs by Maite Caramés from Barcelona and by the Swede Per Henrik Adolfsson, in the lobby a large work by Soufiane Zarib, in the rooms textile art by LRNCE and Marrakshi Life. The colours stay earthy, terracotta, sand, brass.
A Look Inside
Maison Brummell has eight rooms on several levels, plus, on the ground floor, a built-in Moroccan kitchen, a breakfast room and the cosiest room in the house, the Chimney Room with a fireplace and modular sofas. The rooms divide into two categories.
The Garden Deluxe measures thirty square metres and has its own densely planted garden with an outdoor tub and loungers; the Majorelle Superior is smaller at twenty-four square metres, with a private deck to lean back on. Both are kept in pale stone, with built-in benches and bespoke wooden furniture, framed by foliage.
In the rooms wait air-conditioning, a minibar, a tea and coffee kit, a yoga mat and natural toiletries by Botanika Marrakech. On some levels the view opens over the rooftops, elsewhere a mashrabiya wall screens the room, so you easily forget the other guests. The beds are, true to the house motto, very comfortable.
Culinary
The house has no classic restaurant, more a dining room, but a homemade breakfast served indoors or out: freshly baked Moroccan breads daily, baghrir and harcha with orange zest, seasonal fruit, eggs on request, plus fresh juice and mint tea. During the day there is a light menu of Moroccan salads, pastilla and the house version of the club sandwich, plus fruit plates and the sorbets of the local brand Koulchi Pop.
Dinner is cooked only by advance order, traditional dishes such as kefta, lemon chicken tagine, couscous or a simple harira soup. There is no bar in the classic sense; instead an honesty bar stands ready around the clock, where you help yourself. Those who want more head to nearby Gueliz, where the city’s best restaurants lie. All produce is regional, the drinking water micro-filtered in-house, and there is no plastic. You eat in the dining room, in the courtyard or by the pool, depending on the weather and the mood.
Wellness & Relaxation
On the ground floor lies the marble hammam, the pride of the house, a room cast in stone after the model of the traditional Moroccan baths. It comes with a massage room, a steam bath and a heated small plunge pool with massage jets, plus a heated stone block for the classic savonnage and gommage, the Moroccan soap and scrub treatment.
Treatments should be booked a day ahead. Outside lies the pool, wreathed in cacti and bignonias that hang over the wall of the Majorelle garden, with built-in loungers and shaded corners by the traditional water basin in the courtyard. After a day in the noise of the medina, the way into the water is the shortest way back to yourself.
Surrounding Area
Right at the door lies the Jardin Majorelle, which Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé saved from property developers, with the Berber Museum and the Yves Saint Laurent Museum. For art, head to neighbouring Gueliz, where galleries like Siniya 28, the Galerie 127 and the Comptoir des Mines show the city’s young scene. The Maison de la Photographie tells Morocco’s history through native photographers; the Dar El Bacha palace, with its zellige mosaics, now holds the Museum of Confluences and a famous café. The fourteenth-century Medersa Ben Youssef, an old Koranic school with carved cedar courtyards, is among the finest buildings in the city.
For shopping, the concept store 33 Rue Majorelle, Heritage Berber and the shop of the befriended restaurant Moro; in Gueliz, Norya Ayron for kaftans, Lalla for bags and the Some Slow concept store. To eat, stay in Gueliz, at Plus61, Farmers or the Petanque Social Club, or try the friendly Moro, half shop, half restaurant. The bustle of the Djemaa el-Fna and the souks of the medina are a ten-minute taxi ride away, near enough for a day, far enough for the night.
Activities
For design lovers: The house itself as a piece of architecture, plus the Jardin Majorelle and the YSL Museum, the concept stores 33 Rue Majorelle and Some Slow in Gueliz, plus the furniture and lamps that make the house itself an exhibition.
For art travellers: The young galleries of Gueliz, Siniya 28, Galerie 127 and Comptoir des Mines, plus the Maison de la Photographie and the carved courtyards of the Medersa Ben Youssef.
For the appetite: Breakfast in the house, the restaurants of Gueliz such as Plus61 and Farmers, plus the sorbets of Koulchi Pop and mint tea on the roof terrace in the evening light.
For those after calm: The in-house marble hammam with savonnage and gommage, the pool among cacti, a massage on the hot stone and yoga on the mat in your own room.
For city explorers: The souks and the Djemaa el-Fna ten minutes away by taxi, the Bahia Palace, the Saadian Tombs and the Dar El Bacha palace with its café.
For shoppers: Kaftans at Norya Ayron, bags at Lalla, Berber rugs at Heritage Berber, plus the curated shop in the house with candles, jewellery and textiles.
For garden lovers: The Jardin Majorelle in the morning light, André Heller’s Anima garden outside the city and the Menara basin with a view of the Atlas.
For day-trippers: The Ouzoud waterfalls, the green Ourika valley and the Berber villages of the High Atlas with views of the snowy peaks, all within one to three hours.
For those after quiet: Long mornings by the pool, a book in the Chimney Room by the fire, an aperitif at the honesty bar, while the city runs on outside.
Details
- Eight rooms in two categories; the largest: Garden Deluxe (30 m², own garden with outdoor tub), Majorelle Superior (24 m², private deck).
- No classic restaurant; homemade breakfast, a light daytime menu, dinner by advance order, an honesty bar around the clock.
- Marble hammam with massage room, steam bath and heated plunge pool; outdoor and indoor pool.
- Architecture by Bergendy Cooke and Amine Abouraoui, furniture by Maison Nicole, art by LRNCE and Marrakshi Life.
- Adults only, maximum two guests per room; no pets; natural toiletries by Botanika Marrakech.
- Located in the Majorelle district, minutes from the Jardin Majorelle; 20 minutes from Marrakech-Menara airport.
