La Mamounia

Inside the ramparts of the medina near the Bab Jdid gate, with the Koutoubia minaret visible above its palms, stands La Mamounia, the grand hotel of Marrakech. Opened in 1923, it combines a hotel building of the French protectorate period with gardens that are two centuries older. For a luxury hotel in Marrakech it is still the reference, and its name is familiar to many travellers who have never been to Morocco.

History

The gardens came first. In the eighteenth century Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah gave the land to his son, Prince Moulay Mamoun, as a wedding gift, and the orchard of olives and citrus within the city walls took his name. In the 1920s the Moroccan railway company decided to build a hotel for the travellers its new lines were bringing to the south. The architects Henri Prost, the planner of the protectorate's cities, and Antoine Marchisio designed the building, and La Mamounia opened in 1923.

Winston Churchill first visited in the 1930s and returned many times to paint in the gardens and the surrounding countryside. After the Casablanca conference in January 1943 he brought Franklin Roosevelt to Marrakech to see the sunset on the Atlas from the city, and he spent several winters at the hotel after the war. Alfred Hitchcock filmed scenes of The Man Who Knew Too Much at La Mamounia in 1955.

The hotel has been renovated three times at scale. In 1986 it was enlarged and redecorated, in 2009 it reopened after a three-year closure with interiors by Jacques Garcia, and in 2020 a further renovation by the Paris studio Jouin Manku reworked the public rooms, the restaurants and the gardens.

Architecture and design

The building is a long block of ochre walls, arcades and terraces in a style that joins Moroccan tradition to the Art Deco of the 1920s. Inside, the decoration follows the crafts of Marrakech: carved cedar ceilings, zellige tilework, tadelakt plaster, stucco and brass, all executed by Moroccan artisans in the 2009 restoration. The gardens cover around eight hectares, with the original olive trees, orange groves, rose beds and vegetable plots laid out along avenues of palms, and a pavilion by the main pool.

Rooms and suites

The rooms, suites and three private riads look over the gardens, the pool or the medina towards the Atlas. The Churchill Suite keeps the name of its most regular guest. The riads have their own patios and pools inside the garden walls.

Dining

The hotel has several restaurants: Moroccan cooking in Le Marocain, Italian in a restaurant overseen by Jean-Georges Vongerichten since the 2020 renovation, and an Asian restaurant, with the pool pavilion for lunch. The Churchill Bar and the Majorelle Bar serve the evening, and a tea salon with pastries by Pierre Hermé opened in 2020.

Wellness

The spa includes a traditional hammam, an indoor pool and treatment rooms, and the main outdoor pool is in the gardens. There are tennis courts, and the Royal Golf of Marrakech is a short drive away.

Weddings and events

La Mamounia hosts weddings, galas and conferences in its salons and in the gardens, where dinners are laid out among the olive trees. The hotel is the traditional venue for the Marrakech International Film Festival gala and for receptions of visiting delegations.

Location

The hotel is on Avenue Bab Jdid inside the medina walls, about ten minutes on foot from Jemaa el-Fna and the Koutoubia mosque. A car reaches Marrakech Menara airport in around fifteen minutes and the Marrakech railway station in Gueliz in about ten.