Sierra de La Ventana is a picturesque village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Tornquist Partido

Tornquist Partido

Tornquist Partido is a partido located in the south west of Buenos Aires Province in Argentina and is named after Ernesto Tornquist, founder of Tornquist, the partido's main city....

 in the southeast of the Province of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. With a population of 1,819 inhabitants , it is one of the most attractive tourist centres in the Province and has numerous recreation areas and parks.

The town, originally called Villa Tívoli Argentina, was founded on 17 January 1908 by Diedrich Meyer, and developed around the railway station. It was later renamed Sierra del La Ventana after the nearby 1,186 m rocky peak La Ventana, part of the Sierra de la Ventana mountains, which has a natural rock formation containing an opening or 'window' 9 m wide and 11 m high. In 1959 the peak was declared a Natural Monument.

A large, luxurious hotel resort, Club Hotel de la Ventana

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....

, was opened in 1911 near Villa Ventana, 17 km from the town. For a brief period it attracted the rich and famous but soon suffered from the effects of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 in Europe and closed in 1920. Between 1940 and 1946 it was used to intern some of the crew of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee after it was scuttled outside the harbour of Montevideo

Montevideo

Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...

, Uruguay

Uruguay

Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...

, by its captain, Hans Langsdorff

Hans Langsdorff

Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff was a German naval officer, most famous for his command of the Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee during the Battle of the River Plate. He held the rank of Kapitän zur See....

, at the end of the Battle of the River Plate

Battle of the River Plate

The Battle of the River Plate was the first naval battle in the Second World War. The German pocket battleship had been commerce raiding since the start of the war in September 1939...

.