106 ARCHDIGEST.COM
They originally painted the rooms a neutral broken white
before Meyer added his colors, now as dazzling as the Boujad
rugs from the Atlas Mountains scattered on the encaustic tile
floors. Upstairs, the couple wanted to re-create the pink living
room that was the heart of a fancifully decorated 1940s cottage
they once owned in Miami. A yellow ceiling cools the brilliant
reflected light from the whitewashed walls of the neighboring
homes. A Cowtan & Tout document rose-patterned chintz set
the tone for the decoration here, which was completed when
the couple unpacked a harlequin set of majolica plates and
decided to hang them against a painted frieze of deep spearmint
green. Downstairs, the 1940s floral glazed chintz covering
a chair suggested the acid-yellow, teal, chartreuse, and dusty-
pink color scheme.
True to the Tangier spirit, the furnishing is just as eclectic:
colonial Portuguese rosewood furniture for the master bed-
room; Scottish Regency chairs for the dining area; and 1940s
boudoir chairs in the sitting room, for which de Biasi also
bought hundreds of the pressed-flower works made by Stuart
Thornton (the former butler of taste gurus Gianni and Marella
Agnelli) that have been painstakingly hung by the couple’s
suitably perfectionist majordomo, Hicham El Hassani.
WHEN THE HOUSE WAS FINISHED, the lease on the couple’s
Park Avenue apartment came up, and they asked themselves
why they needed to renew it. “My business is international,”
reasons de Biasi, who is currently working on projects in New
York City, Palm Beach, London, and Tangier itself, including
a fanciful scheme for the storied American Legation, which
had been gifted to the United States in 1821 by Sultan Moulay
Suleiman. “To be based here is just so much easier. Life is led
at a more measured pace.”
As they both explain, however, it is the skilled local artisans
who have made their project a joy—weavers, metalworkers,
woodworkers, and plasterers among them. “You can design
anything,” says Meyer, “and someone is willing to make it,”
although he concedes that there is also a great deal of trial and
error. “You just have to be patient,” de Biasi explains. “There’s
a lot of hand-holding, but it’s amazing how quickly it all kind
of works out.”
Because they had sacrificed the idea of a house with a
garden for the ease of living in the center of town, de Biasi
and Meyer enlisted the help of their green-thumbed friend
Alexander Hoyle to create a Henri Rousseau roofscape
instead. This verdant place now affords views of the medina,
the sweeping corniche, and the endless white city beyond.
“We built this house as a place to end up,” says Meyer,
surveying this enchanted domain, “but now we are just in
heaven. We didn’t look back, and it’s so exciting that I pinch
myself constantly.”
A 19TH-CENTURY FOUR-POSTER
PORTUGUESE BED, WITH LINENS BY
D. PORTHAULT AND DEBORAH SHARPE
LINENS, COMMANDS ATTENTION IN
THE MASTER BEDROOM. SCONCES BY
ANN-MORRIS OVER 1920s FRENCH SIDE
TABLES, PAINTED BY ATELIER PREMIERE.
MOROCCAN SCREEN; ANTIQUE RUG.
