The legendary La Mamounia, which has long offered the best of both of Marrakech’s worlds (proximity to the medina and a parklike setting), is undergoing a much-needed renovation and is slated to reopen in the fall or early next year. For decades this palace hotel was where all the luminaries stayed. Churchill roamed its gardens and orange groves. Catherine Deneuve lounged by the pool. I stayed there with my parents when I was a teenager in the ’80s, when it was still a beloved annual retreat for fashionable Frenchmen with their wives or mistresses, Deneuve and Anouk Aimee look-alikes. But then the landmark grew tired, underwent an unfortunate makeover and hosted so many conferences that it lost all its charm. Sadly, when I returned in 2000—not to stay, but for dinner—the atmosphere was entirely different. All traces of French grandeur had been lost, and a convention-center quality permeated the public spaces. Rumors are that Jacques Garcia, the wizard designer behind the Hotel Costes in Paris, will wave his magic wand over La Mamounia and usher it into a new, glorious period.

The first major new hotel project to open in the medina will be the Naoura Barrière from the Lucien Barrière hotel group (they own Fouquets Barrière on Paris’ Champs-Elysées), slated to welcome its first guests at the end of 2008. Designed by Pascal Desprez, the eighty-six-suite property will have lots of water features, including a long pool lined with palms, a Fouquet’s restaurant and thirty opulent riads (from three-bedroom to seven-bedroom sizes). You can bet (and Lucien Barrière is also a casino company) that they intend to give La Mamounia a run for its money.