AHHHHH!!! (Me screaming and dancing around my kitchen!) I can’t believe what I found in the Travel section of the NY Times today. Mike and Lucie Wood have discovered their B&B was once owned by one of my all-time heroes: Josephine Baker. They have designed the interior of the structure around her, including displaying some of her costumes and naming one of the rooms Chiquita after Josephine’s pet cheetah. Oh how I wish I could have seen her walking the streets of Paris in her furs walking Chiquita on a diamond leash. (sigh–endless glamorous).
I am a huge fan of Josephine, and not just because of her dance skills, entrepreneurial skills, and the racial boundaries she shattered. I love her most for being glamorous AND buying a castle to adopt 12 children of different races and cultures from around the world–her rainbow tribe–to teach the world that hate is not inherent. How beautiful. She was a visionary before her time, and talk about putting your money where your mouth is–Josephine didn’t just talk the talk but she walked the walk. You can’t make a bigger commitment than actually adopting children into your family, and while she went broke doing it, Princess Grace came to her rescue–Glamour Girl to the rescue of the Ultimate Glamour Girl–and Josephine was able to prosper during her senior years as she deserved to do.
Of course the double ultimate Glamour is that this B&B is in Marrakesh, where I’ve never been, but I always decorate at least one room in my house in the style of a Moroccan bordello, so I’m pretty sure I’d feel at home there. I did belly dance in a Moroccan palace in Hollywood for ten years, so that counts for something. I LOVE moroccan tile, the scrollwork in their doorway arches, the cushy pillows and low tables and communal food, and most of all, I love the open air tiled courtyards with the fountains and pools are you walk into the buildings. Just gorgeous.
So, this is now on my bucket list of things I MUST do and with rates one third the price of your local Four Seasons, I might just stay a while and soak up the juju of Josephine. (Boy I wish her costumes could talk!)
