Al Moudira

A house made of rescued fragments

Al Moudira opened in 2001 at the edge of the desert, on Luxor's West Bank. Its founder, the Lebanese hotelier Zeina Aboukheir, discovered Luxor on a felucca (a traditional Nile sailing boat) and decided to build a house there, part palace, part guesthouse, on two hectares. The opening earned her the affectionate nickname "Moudira", Arabic for "the lady boss", which became the hotel's name. She lived for twenty-two years in the villa that now bears her first name.

The architect is the London-trained Egyptian Olivier Sednaoui. Working with local master masons, he designed a cluster of domes, arches and courtyards that draws on traditional Middle Eastern architecture and sustainable building techniques. The hotel is a honeycomb of ten courtyards, with fountains and plenty of greenery, set among ten hectares of palm groves and gardens.

Much of the decor is salvaged. Zeina Aboukheir travelled the Middle East to gather handcrafted wooden doors, painted floor tiles, painted glass from Alexandria and local terracotta, often rescued from vanishing historic buildings. The aim is to evoke Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut and Damascus in their heyday. One villa on the estate, Beit Al Fananeen, the "House of the Artists", has hosted painters from all over the world, including those who painted the hotel's frescoes.

The house has since changed hands. The new owner bought adjacent land, built new villas and created a farm; more than 1,500 antiques and handcrafted pieces were gathered for the expansion, with the founder. The Swiss landscape architect Tobias Bucher, based in Florence, designed the gardens of the extension, the library tower and some of the pools. In 2023 Al Moudira became the first hotel in Egypt to join Relais & Châteaux (an international association of independent hotels and restaurants). The hotel employs about 160 people, many of them from the surrounding villages.

A table that comes from the farm

Al Moudira's farm, started in 2022, covers fifteen hectares next to the hotel, facing the Valley of the Kings. An agricultural engineer runs it with about a hundred villagers, who also look after the gardens. Depending on the season, up to 80% of the produce served in the main restaurants comes from it: milk for the cheeses and ice cream, wheat for the bread, vegetables, poultry and a good share of the meat; the hotel aims to be fully self-sufficient by 2027. At breakfast, yoghurt, cheese and ricotta are made with milk from the estate's buffalo cows. The farm's hibiscus goes into the welcome drink and into the natural dyes of Malaika, the house that supplies the bed linen.

Meals move around during the day. Breakfast and lunch are served in the shaded courtyard next to reception and the bar. At midday, the palm grove by the pool hosts Il Forno and its wood-fired pizzas. In the evening, the Ottoman Hall, inspired by the reception halls of Ottoman palaces, serves cooking that blends the Mediterranean, Asia, South America and the Middle East. Khan Al Moudira, recently opened, is the house's Egyptian restaurant, furnished with pieces from Cairo's old coffee houses and facing a courtyard whose Ottoman fountain is carved from a single block of marble. The Farm Kitchen, overlooking the farm, serves the estate's produce, under a large tent or indoors. Shahrazade, a red salon inspired by 1930s Cairo, is kept for private dinners.

Suites, villas and library

All 54 suites have high domed ceilings, hand-painted frescoes, antique furniture and Egyptian cotton linen. No two are alike. For a couple, the Deluxe and Junior Suites are ample; the Signature Suites add semi-domes and a coloured glass ceiling, and the two Fountain Suites, with a fountain in the middle of the room, are the most distinctive. Families take a Family Suite: two connecting bedrooms, each with its own bathroom.

For friends or several generations travelling together, the estate has six villas, each with its own courtyard and private pool, and a butler on request. Villa Zeina, the founder's former home, and Villa Nubia, built on its model, have five bedrooms each. Villa Casbah has five self-contained bedrooms opening onto the pool. The Owner's Loft and the Louxor Loft, the newest, can be split into smaller apartments. Off the estate, the same house rents out Beit el Nil, a twelve-room villa whose garden runs down to the Nile, with calmer interiors.

Al Moudira calls itself a library hotel: more than 7,000 books on the archaeology, history, art and politics of Egypt and the Middle East, including the first edition of the Baedeker guides to the region, and the novels of Naguib Mahfouz, kept in two villas. It is a good reason to come back from the Valley of the Kings at midday.

The West Bank, in practice

The hotel is about 18 km by road from central Luxor, on the other bank. A free shuttle runs to town and back twice a day; you can also cross by the bridge or take the ferry. The airport transfer takes about 30 minutes. The hotel's fleet of eleven vehicles includes a 1967-68 stretch Mercedes, two 1980s Land Rover Defenders and a 1960 Karmann Ghia, for transfers, sightseeing or a desert outing.

On site, the hotel arranges hot-air balloon flights, sunset felucca trips, sunrise at Karnak and visits to artisans. The domed hammam, with hand-painted tiles and antique basins, comes with a sauna, a steam room and massages by therapists from Kerala; a resident Indian yogi teaches outdoors.

Sabaro's view

For whom: couples looking for calm and a setting like no other; families and groups of friends who want a villa of their own with hotel service; travellers spending several days on the West Bank.

Strengths: Sednaoui's architecture and the founder's antiques; a table fed by the farm; the library; the nearness of the necropolis, reached as soon as the sites open.

Good to know: the East Bank, with Karnak, Luxor Temple and the town, means a river crossing every time; the decor is rich, and those who prefer restraint should look at Beit el Nil; the villa pools are sometimes opened to other guests.