The biggest attraction in La Romana, Dominican Republic, is Altos de Chavón, a re-creation of a medieval European village conceived from the imagination of Roberto Copa, a former Paramount Pictures set designer, and Charles Bluhdorn.
Its construction began in 1976 when the construction of a nearby road and bridge crossing the Chavón River had to be blasted through a mountain of stone. Charles Bludhorn, chairman of Paramount then parent Gulf+Western, had the idea of using the stones to build a sixteenth-century Mediterranean village. Construction was completed in the early 1980s.