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In 1904, at the start of the promotion, the infrastructure is staggering: there
is a fully stocked city and a hotel that escapes the paragons of their
time. From 1905 are built in Piriápolis a number of hotels, the first of which
is the great Hotel Piriápolis. It was designed by Jones Brown, the furniture was
imported from Italy, and the dining room has walls covered with mirrors of Saint
Gobain. It worked there the first casino, which was transferred to the Hotel
Argentino when it opened in 1930. Today, the hotel functions as a School Camp,
but you can still find traces of its past glories.
The granite, in a
range that goes from gray to pink and to violet, is extracted from the region as
well as the marble. A marble Piria himself leads to Europe to the amazement of
those who examine it. From Piriápolis were exported different varieties of
granite, black granite being the most common. A few years after the
establishment of workshops (the name which are still known the remains of the
quarry and processing mills) are also sold wine, brandy and cognacquina of
Piriápolis.
The building materials were available and used locomotives for transportation.
In 1910, through an open path in the rock, the Piria's train reaches the Pan de
Azúcar as the first passenger train. It is a narrow gauge railway, where 36,000
quebracho sleepers were required. Nothing remains of this in the 50's, all the
railroad was sold as scrap.
The Port of Piriápolis was a work of great importance, for which it should be
removed some of the Cerro del Inglés, commonly known as the Cerro San Antonio
because of the presence of the chapel of offered to San Antonio by Piria in 1913
(not known yet there has been an official change of nomenclature). Almost all of
the quay wall and the whole pier was built with stones of more than a ton based
on the actual Cerro del Inglés, a color from deep red to brown. Fine details,
however, are built with granite from Cerro Pan de Azucar.
The port was destroyed twice by sea storms, making the work take longer than
agreed with the authorities. For this reason it was expropriated to Piria and
authorizing him later to finish it, which was held in 1916. Then begin to reach
Piriápolis many cruises, a new form of weekend tourism. The port work is
complemented by an Ocean Drive of seven kilometers long by forty yards wide,
extending from Punta Fría to Playa Grande. It is decorated with concrete
planters and tamarisks, then replaced by palm trees.
Piria Castle was the private residence of Don Francisco Piria. Completed in 1897
and designed by Monzani, is a replica of one of the Italian Riviera. He had a
park with palm trees and other species of trees brought from all over the world
and a large number of terracotta statues.

The Argentino Hotel was the finishing touch that brought Piria to
his great work. This is a spectacular building, inspired by Italian palaces, and
whose design make him break with his trusted architect Jones Brown: Piria was
not an architect, but in his mind he had all the details of this work, whithout
leaving a single one randomly, but seem capricious.
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