Altos de Chavón

Altos de Chavón is not old and does not pretend otherwise: it was designed in the 1970s by an Italian film set designer and built by Dominican stonemasons on a cliff a hundred metres above the Chavón river, a village of coral block, terracotta and cobbles in a sixteenth-century Mediterranean manner. The craftsmanship is what carries it, all cut and laid by hand over years. At its centre is a Grecian amphitheatre seating five thousand, opened in 1982 by Frank Sinatra and still used for concerts, and beside it a church, an archaeological museum of Taíno material that is genuinely good, and a design school affiliated with Parsons in New York whose students keep workshops here. The view down the gorge is the best part.

History

The project began in 1976, when a stone hill had to be blasted for a nearby road and Charles Bluhdorn, chairman of Gulf+Western, then the parent company of Paramount Pictures, had the idea of using the stone to re-create a 16th-century Mediterranean village, like some of the architecture of Santo Domingo's historic centre. It was conceived by Bluhdorn and the Italian architect Roberto Copa and completed in the early 1980s, and Bluhdorn's daughter Dominique now heads the Altos de Chavón Cultural Center Foundation; the village holds a cultural centre, an archaeological museum and an amphitheatre (Wikipedia, Altos de Chavón).

What you'll find

• The amphitheatre - a five-thousand-seat Grecian theatre above the river.
• The Regional Museum of Archaeology - a serious Taíno collection.
• The stonework - hand-cut coral block and cobbles throughout the village.
• The gorge view - the Chavón river a hundred metres below.

When to go

November to April is drier and cooler. Late afternoon light on the stone and the gorge is the best of the day and the tour groups have gone. Check the amphitheatre schedule, since a concert night transforms the place entirely.

What to expect

It is a constructed village barely fifty years old, and visitors who arrive thinking it is colonial come away feeling misled; take it as craftsmanship and a setting rather than history. Entry, food and shops are priced for the nearby resorts. Midday brings coach groups and cruise excursions, and the lanes are narrow.

Nearby

La Romana and Bayahíbe are twenty minutes away; Saona Island trips leave from Bayahíbe.

Key facts