Club Hotel de la Ventana

Club Hotel de la Ventana was a large, luxurious hotel resort, built by the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway and opened in 1911 near Villa Ventana, 17 km from the town of Sierra de La Ventana, in the southeast of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The resort was designed by the Italian architect Antonio Gherardi, who also designed the customs house in the nearby city of Bahía Blanca. Construction began in 1904, under the direction of the architects Gaston Luis Mallet and Jacques Dunant, with bricks provided by Ernesto Tornquist, a prominent entrepreneur. The hotel had a luxurious interior and rivalled the best hotels in the world at that time. It could accommodate 350 guests and had 173 rooms and four large suites. Features included a solarium, a restaurant for 600 decorated in Louis XVI style, a winter garden, a ballroom with 150 seats were films could be shown, three casino halls, a night club, two beauty salons, a tower with a panoramic view over the surrounding mountains, a concert hall, a well-stocked library, a polo field, a chapel, an 18-hole golf course, a football pitch and three tennis courts. There was also a riding stable, a swimming pool, a hospital, a pharmacy, a hair dresser, and a large gymnasium. The resort was set in a park of 126 hectars designed by the French-born Argentine architect and landscape designer Carlos Thays who included a wide variety of European trees.

The inauguration on November 11, 1911, which included a Catholic Mass and a banquet, was attended by 1200 distinguished guests including the British Ambassador, Lord Barrington, the President of Brazil, General Campos Salles, the Prince of Wales, Robert I. Runciman and the President of Argentina, Julio Argentino Roca, who described the Hotel as "The marvel of the century". The hotel was opened to the public on 1 December 1911. A 21km narrow gauge (2ft 6in) railway line, built to connect the resort to the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway station in Sierra de la Ventana, was opened on 17 December 1913, and there was a daily connecting service to and from Estación Constitución in Buenos Aires.

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