In the bustling heart of Marrakech lies a tranquil anomaly: Jardins Marjorelle, home to the sprawling Modernist villa that once belonged to French fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé.
Now the estate, designed by architect Paul Sinoir in the 1930s for the French painter Jacques Marjorelle, is for sale. For €4 million ($4.3 million), Sotheby’s is selling the late designer’s villa, which comes equipped with six bedrooms and an outdoor pool, spread across a remarkable two-acre garden oasis.
It was sold to Saint Laurent and Berge in 1980 and has since become one of the Ochre City’s greatest attractions, colloquially referred to simply as the “YSL garden,” drawing around 800,000 visitors a year. Most recently it attracted attention when the socialite scammer Anna Delvey visited the lush grounds in 2017, and then refused to pay the $2,000 bill for the private tour.
Awash in an electric blue, also known as “Marjorelle blue,” the estate comes with original features such as terracotta paving, as well as several living rooms, a patio, and four ensuite bedrooms, each with a private terrace. Behind the pool, an adjacent pavilion offers two additional chambers, as well as another living room.
It sits nearby a Berber museum, which includes more than 600 objects from the Rif Mountains and Sahara that Saint Laurent and Berge personally collected. The Yves Saint Laurent Museum, also nearby, includes a permanent exhibition space showcasing many of YSL’s most dramatic couture creations.
No word yet on whether Delvey, fresh off an exhibition of her works in New York and rumored to still be in the market to open her elusive foundation, has put in a bid.
See more images of the home below.
One of the living rooms inside the villa. Courtesy Sotheby’s Realty
The pool. Courtesy Sotheby’s Realty.
Courtesy Sotheby’s Realty