About
A wall, a door, and a garden behind it.
Riad Al Ersa is an old Taroudant house brought back to life with the materials it was made of. Here's how it happened, and who looks after it now.
2022The house
A house of 1890, four years to wake it.
When we first pushed the cedar door open in 2018, the ersa was dust and one wild orange tree. The fountain was dry, half the gallery had fallen in, and pigeons lived in what is now the Atlas Terrace Suite.
The house was built around 1890 for a family of saffron traders. We found their initials carved into a beam, and kept it.
Restoring it took four years and almost no new materials: earth from the Souss for the walls, lime for the plaster, cedar from the Middle Atlas, and tiles cut by hand in Fès. We planted thirty-two orange trees in the four old beds. The first harvest came in 2023.
Today there are seven rooms, one garden and a roof with the Atlas on it. It feels like a house again, which was the whole point.
Made by hand
Three crafts hold the house up.
Nothing here came from a catalogue. These are the hands that made it, all from within a day's drive.
I
Tadelakt
Lime plaster polished for hours with a river stone, then sealed with black olive soap. Every bathroom wall in the house.
Si Lahcen, Marrakech
II
Zellige
Glazed tiles chipped by hand into stars and cut one by one. The fountain alone took 3,400 pieces.
The Bennani workshop, Fès
III
Cedar
Doors, ceilings and screens carved from Atlas cedar, which still smells of resin on hot days.
Brahim, Taroudant
What we keep to
What we keep to
01
Made of the place
Earth, lime and cedar from within a day's drive. Nothing in the walls is imported.
02
Grown in the garden
Oranges, pomegranates, mint and herbs from our own beds, and the rest from the souk.
03
Seven rooms, on purpose
Small enough that we learn your name on the first evening.
Your hosts
Malika & Hassan
Malika grew up in Taroudant and cooks the way her grandmother did. Hassan spent twenty years running hotels in Agadir, then came home to do it properly, at a small scale.
One of us is always in the house. Ask us anything: where to buy the good saffron, which gate catches the sunset, how long to leave the tagine.
The door is open.
Seven rooms, one garden, a roof with the Atlas on it. Write to us and we'll keep a room for you.