The King of Morocco is serving refreshments in the bar of his new hotel in Marrakech.
How much King Mohammad VI's refreshments cost remains a mystery, along with the price of almost every opulent indulgence at his Royal Mansour paradise palace (www.royalmansour.ma) in the 11th-century Berber town on the old beatnik trail, where a one-night stay costs between 1,500 and 35,000 euros (Dh6,976-Dh162,752).
"Being owned by the king makes all the difference," says Royal Mansour sales director Karim Fehry Fassy.
"The slightest bad experience here and the king will hear about it," the 38-year-old Moroccan hotelier says. "This is his home. There was no limit on the budget and nobody has any idea how much the king has spent."
Rebirth of excess
The age of excess is undergoing a rebirth in Marrakech. Fassy says the king intends to spare no expense to guarantee Royal Mansour outshines the elegant private dwellings owned by the likes of International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, designer Paloma Picasso and investment banker Dietrich Becker, a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners LP in London.
Fassy says prestige hotel chains during the two-year-old global economic crisis have devalued the concept of luxury by marketing bargains to meet delinquent mortgage payments and relieve financial distress.
"There will never be any pay-five-day-stay-seven-day deals at Royal Mansour," Fassy promises. "When you open the doors to people who can't afford a hotel, you lose quality. The rich don't mix with the non-rich and we will never allow a bus to enter these grounds."
Finally, a hotel that really understands the difference between millionaires and billionaires.
"Though it would be to a degree incorrect to call Royal Mansour a hotel," Fassy says of the extravagant fortress sealed behind ten-foot-high burnt-orange walls and two 2.5-tonne entry doors awled from wood and finished in sculpted bronze. "For me, luxury is polishing shoes with champagne and having your butler know how to properly fold a silk shirt in silk paper before placing it in the drawer or the suitcase."
Royal Mansour has 55 butlers who can do that. There's one for each of the 55 imperial "riads" (traditional Moroccan open-courtyard residences) that comprise a 3.5-hectare comfort village of individual rooftop pools, marbled spas and three restaurants overseen by Michelin three-star chef Yannick Alleno.
The hotel staff operates underground, driving golf carts along a maze of passageways, entering the three- and four-storey riads through hidden portals.
Handbuilt hotel
"Each riad is serviced by at least ten people," Fassy says through the rich perfume of jasmine that grows throughout the estate. "It must be this way. Royal Mansour is the only entirely handbuilt hotel in the world."
Here's how that happened.
Five years ago, King Mohammad VI decided he wanted to attract ten million tourists to his country in 2010. So he summoned Morocco's finest carpenters, masons, cabinet makers and artisans to build a manor atop the remains of a municipal swimming pool inside the Madinah wall that he could share with his guests.
Some 5,000 of the king's subjects heeded the call, commanded to ensure that every accoutrement — from the mosaic tiles and carpets on the floor to the precious metal and cedar ceilings — was made from scratch.
"There's no grand opening," Fassy says. "Word of mouth is our philosophy." "And no advertising," adds Royal Mansour marketing director Kenza Zizi. "Marrakech was a hippie destination and it's time for a change. The king intends to rebrand Marrakech as a luxury destination."
If only the olive trees could talk. The youngest inside Royal Mansour is 300 years old, the oldest almost a millennium. Push a button in the library and the hand-carved cedar roof retracts, turning the room and its computerised telescope into an astral observatory.
The 2,000-square-metre Riad d'Honneur is bigger than the 2-million-euro (Dh9-million) villas on sale and encircle the Jack Nicklaus Golf Course at the nearby Samanah Country Club.
"We considered having a fleet of Rolls-Royces and Maybachs and the king said: ‘I can buy you a dozen.' But we reconsidered and went with elegant simplicity, Mercedes-Benz E-600s with a V-12 engine. If a guest wishes, I can also pick him up on a 1,600cc Harley-Davidson Road King Classic."
In English, Mansour means "winner" and Marrakech means "leave quickly". Moroccan luxury-adventure operator Richard Lawson says that putting the two together adds up to more cash for everyone.
"King Mohammad's name gives Royal Mansour incredible cachet," says 63-year-old Lawson, who moved here from London 12 years ago. "This is the king's hotel and that's a big attraction for my high-end clients."
Held in high esteem
Every king has someone behind the throne. At Royal Mansour, that would be general manager Jean-Pierre Chaumard, who began his career at the age of 14 as a bellboy at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and now, 56 years later, is regarded as one of the world's prestige innkeepers.
Chaumard has helped build and manage hotels for the rich and renowned in Switzerland, Monaco, St Tropez and the Far East. Years ago, he worked in Marrakech's other prestige property, La Mamounia, a favourite foreign-getaway destination for former UK prime minister Winston Churchill. In 1978, the Shah of Iran tapped Chaumard to open a private hotel on Kish Island.
Chaumard says the quality of a hotel is not found in the marble.
"Guests define a hotel's luxury," Chaumard says, before rushing off to greet a Russian real-estate mogul and his family. "People ask what luxury and elegance are. I will tell you: While working at the Ritz as a teenager, I crashed a Rolls-Royce Phantom into a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost owned by the Aga Khan. The following day, the Aga Khan told me not to worry because he had plenty more of them.
"There's no recession in my parking lot," Chaumard says.
FLY... Air Morocco
Marakech, Morocco
From Dubai via Casablanca Dh3,885
— Information courtesy the Holiday Lounge by Dnata. Ph: 04 3492886.
