Villas by Atlas Mountains are firmly on the map

InvestinginMorocco:A small luxury development near Marrakech in Morocco has mountain views - and rental income. Alanna Gallagherreports

MARRAKECH, known as the Red City, is fragrant with mint and cinnamon from the souks. It is alluring and exotic, helped in part by its architectural heritage, a cuisine enhanced by French colonialism and breathtaking landscape - a feast for the senses.

It has long held sway with the jet set, with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Jack Kerouac spending time here. While they rocked the casbah others, led by Yves Saint Laurent, decided to put down roots. Will Smith and Jean Paul Gaultier are more recent property buyers in the city's surrounding countryside. Richard Branson bought Kasbah Tamadot, a five-star hotel in the High Atlas, about 45 minutes from Marrakech. Mick Jagger has a house here too. Meanwhile, the city's annual film festival attracts all sorts of A-listers.

The warm climate and otherness experience creates a heady brew - one that is intoxicating to the second home and investor markets. Detached villas in one development, Bab Adrar D'Atlas, on an eight-hectare (20-acre) site at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, is now on offer. Its eight three and four-bedroom detached villas are in the high plains of the Ourika Valley, 27kms from Marrakech.

Baab Adrar is owned in part by Peter Roberts, who last week sold his Golden Tulip UK hotel chain to Whitbread. The developer is Kanga Properties, a pair of husband and wife teams: Peter Roberts and his wife, interior designer Caroline, and Simon Clothier, MD of Box Inc, and his wife, Elisabeth.

The Roberts fell in love with the country and its ambience. "We came to play golf and found it really ticked all the boxes as a second home choice." So they decided to build here. Moroccan planning restrictions, in a bid to stem rural ribbon development, capped foreign ownership of rural land at the time to one home per hectare. So, in order to chase their pipe dream they took a busman's holiday and set about building a bijou development in their spare time.

Peter and Caroline got their dream property and have created similar opportunities for other investors and owners. "I visualised fabulous summer evenings sitting on our garden terrace, looking across at the snow-capped peaks," says Peter Roberts whose home is now complete.

At the moment there are five homes for sale, from €763,000 to €1.1 million in this luxury development of three and four-bedroom homes that are plastered on the outside to blend in with the ochre earth from which the plaster is mixed.

Each house has large sub-tropical landscaped gardens with a vegetable patch, fruit trees and private swimming pools - the pools look tourmaline in colour thanks to the use of tadlacht, the local polished plaster technique.

The development also has a hammam and gym, with glazing on three sides to take advantage of the views. There will be a tennis court and golf practice area in the communal grounds. An underground river means the site has its own water supply.

A concierge office where tours, visits and restaurant reservations can all be made and a housekeeping staff are all part of the five-star service on offer.

The site was designed by Casablanca-born and Turin-educated architect, Karim El Achak. His previous Marrakech projects include the upmarket riads (old city houses with courtyards restored using traditional techniques) of Les Jardins de la Medina and Riad 72. The interiors are inspired by the traditional craftsmanship of the area. Each home has several terraced areas. There's a roof terrace as well as terraces off the reception rooms.

Most of the bedrooms also have French doors and a small outside space. Temperatures during daylight vary, from the late teens up to almost 50 degrees in August. At night it can become quite cool. The properties all have air conditioning and central heating as well a fireplace in the livingrooms and some bedrooms.

Property prices in Marrakech have increased by between 50 to 60 per cent in the last two to three years, says consular Karim Rhaidi of the Dublin Royal Kingdom of Morocco embassy.

Demand for riads - traditional Moroccan houses which are converted to guest-house accommodation - fuelled high prices. But such properties are now very limited, and a switch from riad conversions to new projects on the outskirts of the city is now the driving force in the property market.

Bab Adrar d'Atlas's location offers the quixotic mix of sun and snow during its winter months. The Oukaimeden ski resort is 40 minutes from Bab Adrar and Emaar Properties PJSC is building a golf and ski resort beside it. Artificial snow will extend the season.

Under the Moroccan government's Vision 2010, infrastructure resources are being improved: 80,000 hotel rooms are being constructed, creating 600,000 jobs and visitor figures are set to reach 10 million. Morocco is also being accepted into the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area (EMFTA) in 2010.

"Marrakech is the Paris of Morocco: trendy, fashionable and a growing cultural centre," says Maxim Larouissi, French Moroccan MD of Architectural Republic. For anyone interested in buying in his home country he advises you to proceed with caution as not all sales include title.

"Employing the services of a notaire to guide you through the significant layers of red tape will ease the purchase process."

Bab Adrar d'Atlas has free title and Amazing Morocco has a local notaire in its employ to navigate the purchase process.

Most investors and second-home owners are French, Spanish or British, some of the most frequent visitors here.

Dutch, Germans and Italians make up the other significant nationalities visiting Morocco.

"To date the Irish have been slow to embrace Marrakech, preferring the fly-and-flop attractions of coastal Essaouria and Agadir," says Tanya Eyrie of Sunway Holidays. "When it comes to destination choices the Irish are more conservative but Morocco is definitely a growing market." Almost 11,000 tourists travelled from Ireland to Morocco this year, according to Dublin Airport Authority figures.

Ryanair has signed an open skies agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco and has services from Luton and other European cities to Fés.

Aer Lingus launches a Dublin-Agadir service on November 3rd, which will run until the end of March. A Dublin to Marrakech service remains under review.

For now Marrakech is a 40-minute transfer, with Royal Air Maroc or no-frills Atlas Bleu. Easy Jet flies from Gatwick direct to Marrakech.

The rental income from the homes is £120 (€173) per person per night, with a minimum of three nights stay required. This price includes the use of the facilities and a staff that includes a butler, a housekeeper and a maid.

King Mohamed VI is encouraging foreign property investment. A change in the law in 2001 now allows foreign investors to take proceeds of property sales out of the country, but only after five years.

Sell before that time period and you will only receive a percentage of your money each year. The Kingdom of Morocco is keen to avoid mistakes made in Spain and Portugal.

Restrictions on countryside building are designed to keep this in check.

Contacts: www.AmazingMorocco.co.uk

Louise Hillcoate,

tel 00 44 1937 848888.

Casbah Style

COOL COLOURS, TASSLES

In designer Caroline Roberts's colour palette sage and mint greens sit by mushroom and taupes, with chocolate and aubergine accents to create a sense of drama.

Tassles feature significantly. There are horseshoe arches, niches in bedrooms, bhous - nooks - in diningrooms; hand-carved plasterwork adorns every room.

CHIC NICHES

Grand scale nooks are integrated into livingrooms and by the pools. They're filled with cushions to create low-slung seating.

POOL NOUS

The pools at Bab Adrar D'Atlas are tourmaline in colour because they use a sodium nitrate filtration system to soften the water. The use of tadelakt, a polished plaster technique means the colour of the water doesn't change as a result of being refracted through coloured tiles.

DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL

Brick vaulted ceilings, glazed walls and Berber rugs turned upside down to make them look more interesting are other Roberts' signatures.

Each house has a fountain on its main terrace decorated with zalique, a mosaic using ceramic tiles.

LIGHTING UP TIME

Recessed lighting, with hurricane-style lanterns with glass bases atop them, is a feature of the terraces. They can be switched on simultaneously.