This Marrakech Palmeraie Hotel Is Morocco’s First Black-Owned Stay

The Palmeraie begins where the city ends: a sweep of ochre dust and whispering palms that feels more imagined than drawn on any map. Out here—just a brief ride from the clamor of Marrakech’s Medina—the roads stretch wider, the air softens with jasmine and woodsmoke, and the noise gives way to silence interrupted only by birdsong or the echo of footsteps on gravel. It’s here, on a patch of land so lush it feels borrowed from another world, that Jnane Tamsna sits behind a set of unmarked gates. The land is a hush of lemon trees and flowering vines, gardens thick with mint and fig, pools that shimmer in the afternoon quiet, and terracotta walls golden by the sun.

This is a lived-in dream—part country house, part design reverie, part spiritual retreat. Owned by Meryanne Loum-Martin, a French-Senegalese former lawyer turned interior designer, and her husband Gary Martin, an ethnobotanist, the estate sprawls across nine acres of cultivated land. One of the few Black-owned hotels in North Africa, Jnane Tamsna carries its identity with subtle confidence. Five separate houses, each with its own personality and private pool, are hemmed in between shaded courtyards and wild gardens. The rooms are filled with curated restraint: low-slung Berber furniture, carved wooden doors, handwoven textiles in muted colors—Moroccan, yes, but filtered through a studied and contemporary eye.

Here, mornings begin with coffee served under the arches, and a plate of sliced fruit that tastes as though it was just picked from the garden—because it was. Meals are always rooted in the land: preserved lemon tagines, just-baked bread, vegetables pulled from the earth hours earlier. There is no menu. Instead, the day’s harvest determines what’s served. One night might bring a spiced carrot salad and grilled fish with chermoula, the next a couscous fragrant with cinnamon and cumin. It’s all organic. All real.

But what sets Jnane Tamsna apart is not only its aesthetics or its cuisine. It is the sense that time expands here. Days are punctuated by slow things—reading under the fig tree, floating in silence, a garden walk with the botanist-in-residence. Guests can take cooking classes, try yoga under the olive trees, or learn calligraphy. Children are not only welcomed, they are woven into the rhythm of the place, with magic shows, craft workshops, and treasure hunts across the estate.

Over the years, Jnane Tamsna has quietly drawn writers, artists, and thinkers from around the world; not for fanfare, but for the stillness it cultivates. The estate has even hosted TEDx events and literary salons, where discussions unfold under olive trees instead of spotlights.