Villa Nougués is a settlement in Lules Department,

Tucumán Province Tucumán () is the most densely populated, and the second-smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the province has the capital of San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighb ...

, in northern

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Overview

Situated along the eastern face of San Javier Hill, at 1,350 m (4,450 ft), the settlement was established where a

Jesuit reduction Reductions (, also called ; ) were settlements established by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such reductions were also c ...

operated until the order's suppression in 1767. Prominent Tucumán landowner Luis Francisco Nougués chose the site as the location of his

summer house A summer house or summerhouse is a building or shelter used for relaxation in warm weather. This would often take the form of a small, roofed building on the grounds of a larger one, but could also be built in a garden or park, often designed t ...

in 1899, and his brothers, Juan Calos and Alberto, followed suit, as did University of Tucumán founder Luis Francisco Nougués. These initial proprietors then resolved to create a community for administrative employees of Nougués' important San Pablo sugar plantation and mill, and founded the town in 1904; Luis Nougués served as Governor of Tucumán from 1906 to 1909. The town's early structures were designed by

Polish Argentine Polish Argentines (; Polish language, Polish: ''polscy argentyńczycy'') are Argentine citizens of full or partial Polish people, Polish ancestry or Poland-born people who reside in Argentina. Poland was the fourth largest net migrants contribu ...

architect Juan Hlawascek in the Norman style favored by the Nougués family, originally from the French region of

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; , ; ''Upper Garonne'') is a department in the southwestern French region of Occitanie. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country's fourth-largest. ...

, and among the most noteworthy of these is the Villa Nougués Inn, built in 1903, the Hotel Club Sol, and the neogothic chapel, completed in 1918 (which hosts regular weddings for couples across Argentina). Local sights also include the numerous gardens, the Virgen de Lourdes

grotto A grotto or grot is a natural or artificial cave or covered recess. Naturally occurring grottoes are often small caves near water that are usually flooded or often flooded at high tide. Sometimes, artificial grottoes are used as garden fea ...

, a

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

, and sculptor Juan Carlos Iramain's ''Cristo Redentor'' ("Christ the Redeemer"); the local Las Hortensias Golf Club is the highest in altitude in Argentina. The surrounding

Yungas The Yungas ( Aymara ''yunka'' warm or temperate Andes or earth, Quechua ''yunka'' warm area on the slopes of the Andes) is a bioregion of a narrow band of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains from Peru and Bolivia, and extends i ...

forest landscape, populated with

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

gladiolus ''Gladiolus'' (from Latin, the diminutive of ''gladius'', a sword) is a genus of perennial cormous flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae). It is sometimes called the 'sword lily', but is usually called by its generic name (plural ''g ...

hydrangea ''Hydrangea'' ( or ) is a genus of more than 70 species of Flowering plant, flowering plants native plant, native to Asia and the Americas. Hydrangea is also used as the common name for the genus; some (particularly ''Hydrangea macrophylla, H. m ...

, and violets, and the location's proximity to

San Miguel de Tucumán San Miguel de Tucumán (), usually called simply Tucumán, is the capital and largest city of Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth-largest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Argentin ...

made the town desirable to both prospective homeowners, as well as

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

, in later decades.

Climate

Owing to a higher altitude, Villa Nougués has a

subtropical highland climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring c ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

: ''Cwb'') with mild, rainy summers and cool, dry winters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Villa Nougues Populated places in Tucumán Province Populated places established in 1904 Tourism in Argentina