Villa Anouk is a rambling farmhouse of pale peach-coloured stone with terracotta floors and fairytale views across miles of gently undulating hills out to a misty haze that is the Atlantic Ocean.
The bucolic countryside surrounding Essaouira is one of its greatest surprises. Villa Anouk sits at the heart of it, down a long, bumpy, dirt track about 20 minutes by car from Essaouira (two-and-a-half hours from Marrakech). Should you wish to simply retreat from the world and never leave then you’ll be looked after royally; should cabin fever set in, you are still close enough to town to step out for lunch or dinner on the beach, or prowl an ever-growing number of great boutiques selling home-grown fashion and homewares. Renting a car for such explorations is strongly recommended.
If one of the impossibly sexy agroturismos (rural houses) of Ibiza was to fall out of the sky and land near Essaouira it would probably look something like this. Owner Anouk Beguery has been sympathetic in a restoration of the farm building, keeping the original features such as like the locally thatched thuya wood-beamed ceilings. But the space has been opened up – subtle pours in through huge cedar-wood framed doors and arched windows highsubtleing exposed stone walls, champagne-coloured upholstery, sequinned wedding blanket cushions and sheepskin rugs casually tossed across wire-framed armchairs.
Common spaces are huge and clearly designed with a lot of unapologetic lolling in mind. Gardens and terraces cascade off the rambling property in various directions, offering sun and shade in equal measure and seemingly endless variations on places to chill out.
There’s almost nothing that Anouk hasn’t thought of when it comes to providing creature comforts, including a sleek wading pool beloved by children at the back of the house. But the pièce de résistance has to be the Roman-style swimming pool housed within a beautiful colonnaded room; while the sun bakes you can fling the doors broad to the wind, but when the infamous alizé winds get up you can close them (it also means you can take a dip year-round).
Beyond this there’s not so much to do at the property; if you’re itching to explore, follow Beguery’s insider’s take on secret beaches, personalised shopping trips and the best – though perhaps not so obvious – restaurants in town.
There are seven suites, including one interconnecting room for families called the Atelier Suite, which has a sophisticated wall-to-wall sofa and a hand-painted gilded ceiling alongside a groovy kid’s room with two single beds topped with a pair of adorable stuffed mice. The Minzeh Suite upstairs makes a very delightful bolthole for the solo traveller, but the favourite – particularly among the Instagram set, honeymooning couples and fans of bathing rituals – is the Nour Suite, thanks to its clawfoot tub lit by a giant candelabrum and an intimate patio off the bedroom complete with outdoor shower.
Breakfast à la Anouk is a lavish affair of fresh fruit and yogurt, baskets of hot bread and pancakes, eggs served to your liking with copious amounts of tea, coffee and fresh seasonal juices. It’s all served family style in a large communal dining room – but you can have it in bed if you prefer. The hotel can generally rustle you something up for lunch if you ask: perhaps a fresh salad straight from the souks of Essaouira, or platters of goat cheese from a local organic farm.
Most guests opt to stay in for dinner and are treated to classic Berber cooking with the Anouk touch: cooling gazpachos on a balmy summer evening, tasty chicken, preserved lemon and olive tagines in the spring; hearty beef and prune stews when the fires are roaring and comfort is needed.
You can drive right to the door and some of the rooms are on the ground floor; however, there are steps up to most room as well as on to the terraces.
Definitely. The owner has a young child so goes out of her way to make little travellers feel just as special as the big ones.
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