Dar Beida

Re-done by retro-design pros in smart 60s fashion, this stylish medina house may be the coolest place to stay in Essaouira (sleeps 2-8)

Imagine a cross between Barbarella’s boudoir and a swinging 60s love pad and you’ve got a picture of Dar Beida – one of the funkiest spaces we’ve come across in Morocco. The four-bedroom house is like a curvy white spaceship with a mix of mod plastic furniture and animal skins and skulls… a pre-historic pop-art cave. An incredibly clean and bright cave, mind you. Owners Emma and Graham deliberately avoided dusty, moody Moorish overtones but hung onto their expertise in retro interior design – the house is filled with groovy 60s finds like mushroom lamps and a Mulberry beanbag chair.

Essaouira is an established set for the swords-and-sandals epics that are so popular post-Gladiator so the house is often booked by film folks. Ridley Scott’s DP stayed here when filming 'Kingdom of Heaven', with the town filling in for 12th century Jerusalem. But Dar Beida’s idiosyncratic style is not stiff and formal – it's fine for families and groups of friends. Think the Jetsons á la Maroc and you've got a sense of the fab fusion this house exudes.

Highs

• The ultra-cool feel of the house with its genuine furniture and pieces from 60s and 70s designer legends
• Set in the heart of Essaouira's medina, just 10 minutes walk from the long sandy beach and 2 from the harbour
• Complimentary babouches - the comfy Moroccan slippers perfect for padding about this groovy pad
• Dar means house and Beida is just that - not a trad riad, but a mod house with maid and private cook on hand
• This is a house rental, so you get the whole place to yourself; and per-person pricing makes it attractive to families or even couples, as well as larger groups

Lows

• The very white interior and just-so arrangements of retro relics might be daunting for those who like things a bit slapdash
• Usual no-car problem for a house in Essaouira’s medina, but there is a parking area one minute away
• There are lots of cats in Essaouira; keep doors and windows shut if you go out to stop them getting in
• Heating is fireplace and plug-in radiators only so it can be slightly chilly in winter, though temperatures in Essaouira are rarely very low