the country Cumelenthe place that the former president Mauricio Macri choose to spend vacations and moments of rest, was in the news again. This time for a meeting that the former president had with the president of the PRO, Patricia Bullrichwhom he invited to spend a few days with her husband, Guillermo Yanco.
As Bullrich told CO+, spoke of “the future of Argentina” and announced that, in the face of the next elections, the opposition force will seek to “be clearer and more explicit” about the diagnosis of the country and the government proposals in case they win. “Before they accused us of not being totally explicit about how the problems were in the country, but now we want to be explicit,” Bullrich said.
At the beginning of 2023, Macri received in the same place the head of the Buenos Aires government, Horacio Rodriguez LarretaAlthough this meeting was more private: there were no photos or statements about what was discussed at that meeting. But it is clear that one of the thematic axes of the party these days is the internal one: neither Bullrich, a reference to “the hawks”, nor Rodriguez Larreta, representative of the “doves”, want to resign their presidential claims.
The exclusive country located in the province of Neuquen, is a site frequented by the rich and powerful. In it, Macri, accompanied by his wife Juliana Awada and their daughter, Antonia, rests, plays paddle tennis and soccer, and meets with close people, from the former governor of Buenos Aires and current deputy Mary Eugenia Vidal even the queen of Holland, Máxima Zorreguieta.
Cumelén is located on the shores of the lake nahuel huapi, in a property of more than 30 hectares of araucaria and myrtle forests. Its main feature is not luxury. There, what is most valued is privacy, and not just any millionaire can come and settle. To be a member of the “Club Cumelén”, which manages the complex, you must have the invitation of another member and the approval of the majority.
The house where Macri is staying today is new, and he inaugurated it a year ago: other PRO leaders say that they are still waiting for the invitation. They highlight Juliana Awada’s role as hostess, her attention and her good taste, and her delicious organic salads and fruits (she has her own garden for this purpose).
Before acquiring the current property, he used to stay in a house that belongs to the businessman Jaime Fernandez Madero. That was where, in December 2016, Macri received Alfonso Prat Gay after asking for his resignation as Finance Minister. At that time, the Presidency did not report the content of that meeting but circulated images of the two talking on the deck and walking through the gardens, something unusual in this neighborhood that is reluctant to flash cameras.
Macri also takes advantage of his steps through Cumelén to visit his close friend, the construction businessman Nicholas Caputo. “Nicky” has had a cabin called “Kitty Mapu”. This is one of the oldest properties in Cumelén and belonged (until his death) to john badessichfather-in-law of Gianfranco MacriMauricio’s brother. Also, very close to “Nicky’s” is Luis “Toto” Caputoformer Finance Minister, who often travels with his wife and six children.
Among the businessmen who frequent Cumelén are Alejandro Roviraltafrom the Andrómaco Laboratory; Ignacio Blaquier, of the agricultural sector; and Pablo Roemmers, owner of the pharmaceutical laboratory and Luis Otero Monsegurshareholder of the citrus San Miguel. Too carlos miguensformer owner of Quilmes and who, just a week ago, bought the Calcatreu project, in Black river, through the firm “Patagonia Gold”. In the limit of Cumelén, already inside the neighborhood “The Rafts”has his house edward cohenowner of jewelry stores in the Federal Capital, very close to Macri and always pointed out as a friend of Awada.
Since it was founded, Cumelén was thought of as a refuge for the national elite. Exequiel Bustillowho was a member of the Buenos Aires aristocracy and was the first president of National Parks, founded the place in the 1930s and printed his own class codes on it. It was also he who convinced his brother, the painter and architect Alejandro Bustillo (who designed the HHotel Llao Llao), so that he left his mark on the first constructions of the place, characterized by taking advantage of the materials of the area, something innovative for the time
In his book “The awakening of Bariloche”, Exequiel Bustillo told why he decided to name the area in this way: “In the library of the Jockey Club, which the Peronist barbarism almost made disappear a few years later, I asked for an Araucanian dictionary. I did a lengthy search until I found the word Cumelén, with good euphony and whose meaning is equivalent to ‘Sans Souci’ in French, it seemed to me that it properly expressed the purpose that our colonizing fantasy wanted to achieve”, he wrote. In that same text, the lawyer is proud to have hosted members of the English nobility and to have connected Cumelén with the rest of the country through the telegraph.
In the ’40s, Cumelén was consolidated as the resting place for artists, politicians and intellectuals of the time. Bustillo, who wrote his book with remarkable pride in his work, described: “It was around that same time that we also received Dr. Ramon Castilloto the general edelmiro farrell and the lieutenant colonel Eduardo Lonardiwho would later come to preside over the destinies of the Republic”.
by RN
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