Religious Experience (continued)
Part of a mosque complex, Caitlin and Samuel Dowe-Sandes's 18th-century house in Marrakech gets a heavenly new look
A mirrored console and metal candelabra, both custom made, in the entrance hall.They got pretty lucky in real estate too. Little more than a week after moving from Los Angeles to Marrakech on a whim two years ago—"We had never lived abroad together and realized if we just kept talking about it, we'd be 65 before we actually tried," says Caitlin—the former public-relations executive and her filmmaker husband found the perfect perch: Dar Noury, a traditional courtyard house in a decidedly nontraditional location. Rather than opening onto a bustling alley like most houses in the clay-walled medina where they live, the Dowe-Sandes residence can only be accessed by walking into a centuries-old mosque, heading down a long corridor, and opening a discreet nail-studded door adjacent to the prayer hall. Dating from around 1760, the three-bedroom, two-story house behind the door was likely constructed for "an imam or someone who worked for the mosque," Samuel says, which helps explain the curious placement of its entrance within the house of worship.
Aside from that unexpected feature, Dar Noury (dar means house in Arabic, while Noury is the surname of a former owner) was standard medina fare when the Dowe-Sandeses found it, equipped with hole-in-the-floor toilets, high, narrow rooms, and a sunny courtyard. With the guidance of project manager Hamoud El Foukahi, the couple renovated the structure in three swift months. Samuel says, "It took longer to build our deck in Los Angeles!"
Architectural authenticity was a key consideration, so the owners chose to respect and refine where others less sensitive might have cheerfully gutted. (Modern plumbing, however, was a must.) Masonry walls were resurfaced, and the ceiling of a corridor was opened to expose the picturesque cedar-and-bamboo structure behind it. The couple also preserved the old-fashioned cement tiles in the courtyard, primarily because the black-and-white motifs were as surprising as they were fortuitous. "We love color and pattern, but Marrakech is famous for its incessant pinks," Caitlin says. "After a while, all you crave is white."
Since the paints in the local hardware stores come in either matte or high gloss, the couple hand-mixed a crisp white that has sheen but not too much shine. Smooth finishes, it turns out, are highly practical in a city known for housekeeping challenges. The dust churned up by donkey carts and speeding mopeds—and the occasional sandstorm—makes its way indoors with regularity, but "it doesn't seem to cling so much to slick surfaces," Caitlin explains. Not every wall in Dar Noury went snow-white, however. The master bedroom got dramatic coats of elephant-gray, the tiny dining room is nail-polish-red, and a dashing black stripe snakes up the new white staircase that leads to the roof terrace.
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