Villa Epecuén: The Argentine Resort Town That Rose From a Lake

On the Pampas of Buenos Aires Province lies Lake Epecuén, a lake so salty that its water has been compared to the Dead Sea. People believed its water could heal, and in the early 20th century a resort town grew up on its shore to take advantage of it. Villa Epecuén was founded in the 1920s, and a railway line soon brought visitors from Buenos Aires. The town flourished. From the 1950s into the 1970s, as many as 25,000 tourists came each summer season to float in the salt water and stay in its hotels, guesthouses and spas. At its peak, Villa Epecuén had around 1,500 residents, room for about 5,000 visitors, and some 280 businesses. In 1938, the town even got a striking Art Deco slaughterhouse designed by the architect Francisco Salamone. The lake that made the town also threatened it. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, years of unusually heavy rain swelled Lake Epecuén, and the town depended on embankments to hold the water back. In November 1985, the embankment protecting Villa Epecuén gave way. The water poured in and rose steadily. Residents evacuated, taking what they could. The water didn't stop. It kept rising over the following years, and by around 1993, the town lay under about 10 meters of salt water. Villa Epecuén stayed underwater for more than two decades. Then, around 2009, a long dry spell set in, and the lake began to shrink. Slowly, the town reappeared, transformed. The salt water had stripped the buildings, killed the trees and coated everything in a crust of white and gray salt. Streets, rusted cars, the skeletons of hotels and the ruined slaughterhouse emerged from the lake bed. One former resident came back. Pablo Novak, born in 1930, had grown up in Villa Epecuén and stayed nearby after the flood. In 2009, as the water receded, he moved back into the ruins and lived there alone for years, becoming famous around the world as the town's only inhabitant. He died on January 22, 2024, at 93, and after his death Villa Epecuén was officially declared deserted. Today, visitors walk the salt-white ruins of the resort town.