L'Hotel Marrakech gets the distinctive Conran touch

Aficionados of British design will be familiar with the Conran​ name. Synonymous with classic and impeccable taste, it's a legacy begun by legendary interior designer and retailer Sir Terence Conran​ and carried on by a younger clan of restaurant, retail, fashion and homeware leading lights.

Perhaps the most successful of the next generation is Jasper Conran​, the favourite couturier of Princess Diana, acclaimed theatrical designer, and creator of beautiful things for Wedgewood, Waterford and Stuart Crystal among other achievements.

Another now comes in the form of his first hotel, L'Hotel Marrakech​ in the Moroccan city of the same name. A hotel is something he's wanted to do, he says, since the mid-1980s and finding the right place, a 19th-century palace in the medina, involved he and his team visiting some 60 riads before settling on and reinventing this one, described by one media visitor as "a cathedral to good taste".

It contains five suites set around an unusually wide courtyard garden and swimming pool. Infused with the elegance of the exotic hotels of the 1930s so loved by early 20th century writers who took up residence in them, it's indeed designed to feel more like a private home, with fluttering white voile curtains, whitewashed walls, high zouak ceilings, warm, soft, restful colours and unfussy yet exquisite decoration.

The roof terrace with sun loungers offers extraordinary views of the Atlas Mountains and the skyline of Marrakech. Breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea can be taken under the pergola, cocktails among orange and fig trees, and dinner by the fire in the dining room or, on warmer nights, accompanied by the tinkle of the fountain and the scent of roses and jasmine coming through the opened large glass doors.

Unsurprisingly, it's already attracting celebrity – and literary – clientele.

Rooms from £300. See www.l-hotelmarrakech.com