Thierry Teyssier
Man of the Hours
“What is a hotel?”
Choose to spend your most precious hours with us, and I will lead you to shared moments of indescribable happiness.”
“Hotels no longer need four walls, a rooftop bar, and suites with 2,000-square-foot bathrooms,” Teyssier insisted, arms waving into the crisp North African evening. In a charming mélange of French and English, the former theater actor spoke of finding unscripted backdrops for his storytelling, and his plans to transport guests across time and space. I secretly wondered what the hell he was talking about.
Instead of building walls, Teyssier proposed to takeover unique yet simple structures and to reinvent them with objects contained in steamers trunks handmade by Morocco’s L’Atelier de Manue, one of the last remaining master trunk artisans. Every six months or so, he would pack them up and decamp to a new destination chosen by a singular criterion: “Wherever makes me start to dance in the sand.”
In 2018, those musings in the desert became reality. Teyssier’s vision of making the impossible accessible—both physically and metaphorically—have come to fruition with 700’000 heures. “Choose to spend your most precious hours with us,” he proposes. “And I will lead you to shared moments of indescribable happiness.”