Bill Willis

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Bill Willis arrived in Marrakech in the 1960s and never left. He developed a maximalist style that fused traditional Moroccan craftsmanship — tadelakt, zellige, carved cedarwood — with theatrical scale and contemporary sensibility.

Morocco Connection

Willis didn't just decorate Morocco — he created the aesthetic vocabulary the world now recognizes as "Moroccan style." His clients included J. Paul Getty Jr., Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Bergé, the Rothschilds, and Talitha Getty, whose rooftop photographs in Marrakech defined an era. Key interiors include Dar el-Hanch, Dar Tamsna, and the Getty palazzo. His innovation was treating traditional Moroccan materials not as artifacts but as a living medium: scaling up tadelakt to entire rooms, using zellige in configurations no maalem had attempted. He trained a generation of Moroccan artisans who still work in Marrakech today.

Key Works

Dar el-Hanch, Dar Tamsna, Getty palazzo (all Marrakech)

Buildings on This Site