Travel

July 16, 2025 – Published in Design & Decor Spring-Summer 2025 issue

Jasper does it again

Words Jim Dunn

If only walls could speak and homes chitter chatter. What would we learn? I suspect a lot!

Here I am in the luscious Villa Mabrouka www.villamabrouka.com in Tangier, Morocco overlooking the ocean with The Straits of Gibraltar… southern Spain and Gibraltar in my vision from the rooms. And then there is the magical city of Tangier overflowing below and on our doorstep just ready to be explored.

This 1930s building is the former home and love nest of the iconic clothes and fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner and business guru Pierre Bergiere both no longer with us.

This was their summer home in Morocco away from the heat and bustle of their other bases Paris, Normandy and Marrakech. It’s here that they held court, awash in white linen, sunhats and hospitality galore with hot and cold running staff and probably guests.

Here they would host their similar minded friends and were the centre of a thriving gay  scene from around the world in this city which has always attracted the gay community in particular.

Indeed over the years Tangier has long attracted creatives from around the world … Henri Matisse, Francis Bacon, Mark Twain and Tennessee Williams among the talent which would stroll around the promenade and casbah and frequent the bars and coffee houses. More recently Mick Jagger and his mates could be seen enjoying the Moroccan life.

There is a renaissance going on in and around Tangier these days with the old souk undergoing extensive, tasteful. refurbishment and old homes being bought up, many by the gay community and you know how good gays are at decorating… so the whole scene is looking wonderful.

That’s why I’d love it if the walls of the homes could speak. What gossip we could discover. Who said what to whom and much more interesting who slept with whom? And who insulted whom at that party.

Along comes Jasper Conran, he of the British design dynasty started by his famous father Terence in the 1960s and on a visit a few years’ ago Jasper just happened to find that the Yves Saint Laurent Villa was for sale following the death of YSL and Pierre.  And …hey presto… 4 years after purchasing the property it’s now an all white 12 roomed small hotel of such beauty and efficiency.

Jasper is now a designer of repute in his own right and owner of now, two hotels, L’Hotel in the centre of old Marrakech, down a maze of narrow alleyways … I’ve had an excellent dinner there and now here I am in my room off the main entrance hall at Villa Mabrouka in Tangier’s Kasbah. 

You can sleep in The Marrakech Suite, Yves’ former bedroom and listen to the birdsong from the stunning gardens full of dark nooks and alleys ideal for that midnight stroll. Other rooms look out over the Straits or the gardens.

Jasper is not the only hotelier re discovering this exotic city with major international hotel brands opening up and the older hotels being refurbished.

Of his Tangier adventure Conran says, ‘that wonderful French atmosphere and roguish quality is what I love about the place. Also the authorities are putting so much effort into the city, so much improvement, it’s such a bubbling city’.

I was fortunate during my short visit to be invited by friends to lunch with the enchanting and world famous designer from New Zealand Veere Greeney. His lunch terrace table overlooked  the ocean and his gardens which he also designed. His private tour of the gardens and his home was so inspiring. A maestro. His home I have to say was the most perfect home I have ever visited and it is all covered in his new beautifully illustrated book Seeking Beauty. www.veeregreeney.com