Auberge Ifrane

These images were produced for commercial use: to show the inn at its best, in every season and at every hour, and make people want to stay. The work meant building a full photo-reportage — arrival on the gravel forecourt, aerial overviews in summer and again under snow, pool, courts, petting farm, campfire under moonlight, and the interiors of the chalets — then tuning each scene's own light, from low morning sun to the glow of lanterns at dusk, and peopling every view with families, couples, players and waiters so the place feels alive.

The inn is made up of several log chalets, roofed in terracotta tiles and set on local stone bases, in the building tradition of Ifrane. All around lies the cedar forest of the Middle Atlas: cedars, pines, weeping willows, and generous beds of lavender, salvia, grasses and crape myrtle in full pink flower. A free-form pool with a stone cascade, paired with a glazed enclosure, sits at the heart of the estate, between tennis and padel courts, ping-pong tables and a pétanque pitch, a koi pond and a paddock where donkeys, sheep and cows are fed by hand.

Inside, everything is warmth: log walls, exposed roof timbers, floors of irregular stone flags, tall masonry fireplaces, tan leather and wool. A double-height reception lounge opens onto the dining room, the bedrooms combine a deep bed, an open fire and a forest view, and the spa lines up its massage tables by candlelight. A carved stone bathtub, a balcony overlooking the valley and a table laid for the evening complete the sequence.

The care went to the substance of the timber — knots, grain, patina — to the stone of floors and hearths, to the fresh snow of the winter views, and to the truthfulness of the planting: seasonal flowering, density of the beds, the silhouettes of the cedars. Light by turns golden, brilliant or blue-toned, for a mountain mood that is welcoming and family-friendly.