San Carlos de Bariloche, Río Negro
Nahuelmar
Forty-seven rooms of local stone and cypress, standing above Lake Nahuel Huapi since 1948. There is a hall where you can warm your back, a long window wall over the water, boots drying by the back door and a small casino one floor down.
A lodge of stone and cypress
In 1948 the builders took what the valley offered: grey stone from the moraine and cypress from the slope behind, under a roof pitched steeply enough to shed the June snow in one slide.
The hall runs the length of the ground floor. At one end stands the fireplace, wide enough to walk into and tall enough to stand up in, and it is lit from the first cold afternoon in April until the last one in October. At the other end the window wall faces south over the lake, eleven panes of it, and the light that comes through on a clear morning is the reason most people stop talking for a moment when they arrive.
The weather isn't always kind. Wind comes down the lake in long grey sheets for days at a time, then drops, and the water goes flat as a plate. On the first kind of day we keep the fire going, and on the second we sweep the terrace.
Facts at a glance
- Rooms47, across four types
- Built1948, stone and cypress
- Standing onthe slope above the lake
- Check infrom 15:00
- Check outby 11:00
- Ski and boot storeby the back door, heated
- Dogsin the Balcón rooms, by arrangement
- Liftserves all floors, including the lower one
Rooms
Four kinds of room, one staircase
Six rooms sit up under the beams, fourteen look straight down the lake, twelve open onto a balcony over the lenga trees, and fifteen stand above the terrace on the west side.
No two are identical, and we've never tried to make them so: the floorboards creak in different places, and some rooms have a bath while others have a shower under the slope of the roof. Every one has a wool blanket folded at the foot of the bed, because the night temperature in this valley drops faster than guests expect, even in January.
What is in every room
- Bedswool blankets, cotton sheets
- Heatradiators, on from April
- Waterfrom the lodge's own spring
- Kettleand a tin of yerba
- Windowsthey open, all of them
- Wi-Figood in the hall, patchy upstairs
Dining
Four rooms where food happens
Breakfast in La Leñera beside the wood store, dinner in Comedor Cipresal under the beams, a drink in Bar Piedra on the lower floor, and from December to March everything moves outside onto Terraza de Enero.
The kitchen buys lamb from the Pilcaniyeu road, trout from the lake when the boats bring it in, and bread is made here every morning at five. The menu changes when the delivery does.
Rough hours
- Breakfast07:30 to 10:30
- Lunch, terrace12:30 to 15:00, summer
- Dinner19:30 to 22:30
- Bar Piedra18:00 until late
- Tea and cake16:00 to 18:00, the hall
Lower floor
Downstairs, the casino
Nahuelmar Casino is built into the lodge itself. Take the stone stair at the far end of the hall, or one stop down in the lift, and you are there without going out into the cold.
The casino is a small room with a few tables, a bar along one wall and enough space between chairs to hear the person opposite you. It opens in the evenings. The legal age in Río Negro is 18, and photo identification is checked at the door on every visit, however many nights you have already stayed.
Table limits are set by the staff working the floor, so ask before you sit down. The casino is a land-based floor only, and this website offers no games, takes no bets, holds no accounts and accepts no deposits or payments.
Before you come down
- Wherelower floor, under the hall
- Openevenings only
- Age18, photo ID every visit
- Dressneat, no ski boots
- Limitsset by staff on the floor
- Breaks and exclusionarranged at reception, in person
Location
Above the lake, outside the town
We stand on Avenida del Cipresal, a little west of the centre of San Carlos de Bariloche, high enough on the slope that the road noise stays below and the whole north shore is in view.
The Civic Centre is a twenty minute walk down the hill and a rather longer one back up. The chairlift at Cerro Campanario is eight kilometres west. Cerro Catedral, where the skiing is, is twenty by road. Trailheads into the lenga woods start four hundred metres from our own gate.
Distances
- Town centre3 km, downhill
- Airport16 km east
- Bus terminal6 km east
- Cerro Campanario8 km west
- Cerro Catedral20 km
- Nearest trailhead400 m, on foot