EVEN THE most sensible people seem to go mad in Marrakesh. From the moment you offload from easyJet, you’re in a sensuous colourful world and the best thing is to give in without a struggle. There are forces at work that you haven’t even reckoned with – like the sunset over the square, the gardens that seduce you from one fountain to another, the shadows that flicker even in the brightest rooms. Oh God, please don’t tell me I’ve left my glasses on the plane.

God is good, I’ve got my glasses and installed here at the top of an exquisite boutique hotel designed by Morocco’s silver-haired wild child, the architect Charles Boccara, there’s every entrancing aspect of Moorish architecture to behold.

This Tunisian-born, Paris-educated architect is the darling of the Moroccan cognoscenti and it’s he who’s been chosen to design Domaine de L’Akhdar, the three-phase project on the southern outskirts of Marrakesh. So far every single villa in the first leg of the development has been sold off-plan, almost all to British purchasers. Integral to all this wheeling and dealing is Widad, a dark-eyed Berber beauty who speaks, and smiles, in French, English, Spanish and Italian. Widad has accompanied many a prospective buyer to the peaceful site, only fifteen minutes from the throbbing heart of Marrakesh.

One such was Michael Collier, a hardheaded optician from Stirling, who quickly developed all the symptoms of a man in love. “I’d done a lot of research, I’d looked at Bulgaria and Cape Verde and Florida. Even though this was the first time in my life that I had been to Marrakesh, I had no qualms at all. I just plunged in.”

He and his wife, Karen, paid €299,400 (£201,280) for their three-bedroom, three-bathroom walled villa at Domaine de L’Akhdar. “We had agreed that if we did go for a foreign investment – where we planned to spend at least two months of the year – we didn’t want to wake up in some anonymous apartment wondering what country we were in, France or Italy, Florida or where. We wanted to wake up and think, ‘We are in Morocco’, perhaps not the Morocco of the medina but the Morocco with a view of the Atlas Mountains and domestic architecture that was authentic. The Atlas Mountains were particularly evocative because that very morning I had left my home in Stirling and my last view before I left was a view of the Ochils, covered in snow just like the Atlas. It’s funny, I know, but it was like a homecoming. So I put down my 35 per cent deposit. I will probably negotiate a mortgage for the remainder and in no time at all – well 15 years – we’ll own the place. By then, Karen and I will have played a lot of golf, ventured into the Atlas Mountains, let out the place for a rent that will have paid 95 per cent of the mortgage and savoured a kind of timeless life that most of us have forgotten – and all with swimming pool, air-conditioning and fountains playing peacefully in the courtyard.”

So, had they considered a riad, an older-style property, inside the medina, somewhere surrounded by the bustling life of the souks, the cry of the muezzin to prayer from Marrakesh’s beautiful (but forbidden) mosque?

“Well, of course, we were attracted, but we really wanted something more peaceful. I’m not saying that a view of the King Mohammed V Avenue mightn’t be thrilling, but, for us, the Atlas Mountains win hands down every time.

“And in only 15 minutes, we can be in the centre of Marrakesh, having a wonderful chicken or lamb tagine in one of the great restaurants, visiting nightclubs or just strolling round the flower-scented avenues or gardens with the ever-present splash of fountains in the background.”

Vue de Paradis, the second phase of the development, offers three-bedroom detached villas with private gardens and pools.

Details: Integral Estates, 08700 613432 or email Paul@integral-estates.com Hotel Dar Rhizlane: (212) 2442 1303, www.dar-rhizlane.com

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