Moor the Merrier

Maryam Montague finds adventure around every corner in the ancient Moroccan city of Marrakech.

Ever feel like you’re coasting through life on autopilot? Here are a few words of advice from Maryam Montague, wife, mother, human rights specialist, hotelier, writer, photographer, TV actor and general overachiever, whose lifetime of adventure is bound to inspire envy in anyone who has ever dreamed of escaping a routine existence.

“Roll down the window, turn the music up loud and grab the steering wheel,” she enthuses when asked if there is a philosophy by which she tries to live her life. “There’s a whole world waiting for you right outside. Be brave and don’t censor yourself.”

Having the instinct and courage to chase adventure no matter where it may lead certainly seems to have worked for Maryam. After an itinerant childhood spent in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran and the United States and an even more nomadic lifestyle as an adult (she has lived in 10 countries and visited about 60 others), Maryam and husband Chris, a fellow American and architect, have settled in Morocco, where they have built their dream home – and a super-stylish eco resort – amid a sprawling, sun-baked olive grove on the outskirts of Marrakech.

The couple were living in Namibia when Maryam received a call from her boss at the US-based human rights organisation she worked for asking if she would be interested in moving to the Moroccan capital of Rabat to run its branch there. For the intrepid Montagues, the fact they knew next to nothing about the country made the offer all the more appealing.
“We were adventurers, gamblers and nomads,” she says. “Morocco would be a new discovery. We moved there sight unseen.”

As usual, the couple adapted quickly to their new environment. More unusually, they soon came to envisage living there permanently. The North African nation’s colourful history and culture, Moorish architecture, hospitable people and sub-tropical climate combined to leave them, as Maryam puts it, “enspelled”.

So, when Maryam was offered her current role as a human rights specialist with Washington DC-based consultancy firm Management Systems International (MSI) – along with the chance to be based anywhere in the world – she and Chris opted for the exuberant, ochre-hued city of Marrakech.

“We originally thought about renovating a riad [a traditional Moroccan house with an interior garden] in the Medina [old city], but we eventually decided we’d really love to live in an olive grove with views of the Atlas Mountains,” she says.

The couple set out in search of their dream site and found it just 13 kilometres from the city centre: nine acres of fertile countryside complete with a garden bursting with exotic flora (think palms, cacti and rhododendrons), a five-acre olive grove and a flock of good-looking but raucous peacocks.

When the local council asked them to do something with the site that would benefit the local community, the Montagues decided to transform themselves into boutique hoteliers. Peacock Pavilions was born – in theory at least.

In practice, Chris spent several weeks designing the large, luxurious Moorish-inspired homestead, which the couple now share with their two young children Tristan and Skylar, and the two neighbouring guesthouses (or pavilions), which have a combined total of five bedrooms capable of accommodating up to ten guests. The design finalised, a team of 20 local builders spent the next four years constructing the buildings from sustainable materials. Although the entire project proved much lengthier and more costly than the couple had imagined, Maryam, the eternal optimist, says the extra time enabled them to create “exactly the right look and feel”.

The result is a property which looks and feels like it belongs to a modern Moroccan princess with an exceptionally eclectic and slightly eccentric sense of style. Or perhaps a mirage. And apparently it’s an enduring effect.

“I can’t really explain how it feels when I go outside each morning and see that it’s all real,” she says. “I still want to pinch myself.”

The plush Atlas and Medina pavilions are a tribute to Morocco’s rich cultural heritage with its indigenous Berber, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and French influences. Filled with an eclectic mix of antique and contemporary items Maryam has sourced locally and overseas, the pavilions feel like an especially stylish Aladdin’s cave (again with a slightly bohemian bent). Both feature individually decorated bedrooms with private terraces, a cavernous, dome-roofed living and dining area and spectacular views of the mountains. There’s even a small outdoor cinema nestled amid the olive grove.

“Guests sit on sling chairs made from kilim rugs and watch films under a canopy of stars,” Maryam explains.

For those of us who find ourselves turning an unflattering shade of green as we learn more about Maryam’s seemingly enchanted existence, it’s tempting to think things have been relatively easy for her; that it was somehow her destiny. Maryam herself believes that, to some extent, it was. Born in Cairo to an American humanitarian aid father and Iranian medical doctor mother, she was never going to have an ordinary upbringing.

“Other fathers put on suits and ties to go to work each day but mine put on a safari suit and disappeared for two weeks,” she says. “He taught me the world was mine to explore – a place of fascination and mystery.”

After several years in Africa, the family settled in the small, affluent community of Chappaqua in the state of New York. Now a renowned haven for current and ex-politicians (including Bill and Hillary Clinton), Maryam insists the town was far more low-key when she moved there.

“There were quite a few politicians, but none anyone had heard of,” she says.
Maryam attended an all-female college in Massachusetts, famous for churning out presidential first ladies, before gaining her Master of Arts degree in international affairs in Washington DC. Graduation was her cue to ricochet back to Africa and from there, she says she never looked back.

Following her father’s lead, she embarked on a career in human rights. Over the past 12 years, she has worked for several US-based organisations, running programmes designed to address issues of governance, politics and women’s and children’s rights – to name but a few – in various nations throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

“My programmes are varied: from working on prisoners’ rights, combating child labour, to promoting a free media,” she explains.

With an apparently inherited enthusiasm for interior design (and shopping), she says she has “always tried to make [her] home as interesting and beautiful as it could be with the resources [she had]”.

“My mother has had a lifelong passion for interior design and taught me everything I know about grace and beauty. Most importantly, she instilled in me the importance of creating a lovely home environment, no matter how humble.”

In recent years, Maryam’s penchant for interior design, writing and photography has opened up several other career opportunities. In 2006, she started a blog, MyMarrakech.com, which she describes as “a love letter” to her adopted homeland. Both a chronicle of her family’s experiences and a celebration of Moroccan culture and design, the blog has made her something of a virtual celebrity, now attracting about 20,000 hits a month. The blog’s success has also prompted Maryam to set up an online boutique, work as an interior design consultant and write travel features which have been published in newspapers and magazines internationally, including National Geographic and Time.

Her biggest literary coup came in 2009 when American publisher Artisan Books invited her to put together a book on Moroccan interior design. While Maryam admits the offer flabbergasted her – “I seriously wondered whether they’d mistaken me for someone else.” She was more than happy to accept. The resultant book, part memoir and part Moroccan interior design treatise, is set to hit bookstores in mid-2011.

A multi-tasker extraordinaire, Maryam has also developed a side career in television. She has featured on home and travel shows on two popular US cable networks and appeared in four commercials broadcast in Morocco and France. Together with her family, she is set to appear in a new Moroccan tourism campaign, which will be broadcast on Royal Air Morocco flights - proof, surely, that they are poster people for the modern Moroccan expat lifestyle.

In what little downtime she has, Maryam enjoys exercising in her ‘little outdoor gym’ among the olive trees and hosting dinner parties in her tailor-made, Moroccan-style dining tent decked out with vintage carpets and low, candlelit tables.

And, going by her future goals, the adventures of Maryam Montague are far from over. She plans to establish Peacock Pavilions as a place for creative types to host intimate events and retreats, write a second book, start a home-ware brand and, if time allows, do more television work.

“Success is not about brilliance,” she says. “The world is full of brilliant people who sit in cubicles year after year. Success is about two things: first, the willingness to take risks and second, the strength to persevere.”

Her advice to women wanting to embark on their own overseas adventures is simple.
“Do your homework, make your plan and buy a plane ticket. What’s the worst that can happen? You can always leave and start over again.”
Lorner Thornber