Club Hotel de la Ventana

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.

Features included a solarium, a restaurant for 600 decorated in Louis XVI style, a winter garden, a ballroom with 150 seats where 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.

The resort began to suffer large losses from 1913 onwards due to the world economic depression and the outbreak of war in Europe.

Guests included the Crown Princess of Spain, the Prince of Wales later to become King Edward VIII, Brazilian President Hermes Rodrigues da Fonseca, and many other high-ranking figures of state and diplomats.

Later the hotel was looted, with everything from fine wines in the wine cellar to the valuable furniture disappearing, At the start of the Second World War in 1939, the Battle of the River Plate, involving the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the British cruisers Exeter, Achilles and Ajax, ended with the captain of the Graf Spee, Hans Langsdorff, scuttling his ship in the harbour of Montevideo in Uruguay.