Design service:
Each project is a unique design challenge we face with an aesthetic intelligence. the sauna designs have a formal elegance with a rustic appeal.
Listening to exactly what your needs are and helping to realize your personal vision is the value of our service. While our primary concern is the function of the sauna, this has to be married to aesthetic goals. The saunas are hand-crafted with all the care you’d expect out of a quality home builder.
Quality building:
hand-crafted builds to last decades. We know that owning a sauna is a investment in your quality of life.
Although there is always a cheaper way to design and build things, we choose to focus on quality with using non-toxic materials and the latest best practices in building science. Wherever possible we use locally sourced hand-crafted materials and adhere to green building practices. We work with dealers to get the best pricing for parts and materials. We do not import or use infrared units nor do we install kits; we custom make all of the components in the shop in Ithaca, New York, US.
Expert Knowledge:
over 30 years experience working and consulting in the building trades.
One of the few quality custom sauna builders on the East coast who is sourcing raw materials. Rob readily dispenses his knowledge to clients, a clear, professional communication style whether they be a DIY builder or architectural firm. For each sauna project, we help clients select the perfect kiuas for their sauna and work to provide the optimum experience and “good löyly” whether it be electric or wood-fired.
About Rob Licht
Rob Licht is an artist, a builder, a visual thinker and a nordic skier. Rob Licht has been taking sauna for 45 years and has designed well over one hundred custom saunas. He has a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Cornell University and has been a practicing artist and teacher for over 30 years. He began combining his love of sauna, his practice as an artist and his skills acquired from working in the building trades into a sauna building business in 1995. Today sauna building is his primary focus and he is one of the leading east coast sauna builders.
As a small business owner, Rob is well-known for sauna building and has hundreds of sauna fans and blog followers. He offers sauna building plans, sauna building classes, and talks with people all around the world about sauna. Currently, Rob operates a busy fabrication shop in Ithaca, NY where he builds freestanding and mobile saunas and promotes sauna culture in the US. A long-standing member of the North American Sauna Society, he helps promote and support the growing sauna culture in the US.
“Taking after some of the many Finns who settled in the Finger Lakes Region, my childhood friends and I adopted the sauna as a way of life. In the winter we would roll in the snow or plunge into the icy creek. In the summer, after a hard day of work or play, our bodies became refreshed in the cleansing heat. More than a place to sweat, it became a weekly communal event. The sauna has become essential to my mental and physical well-being.” —Rob Licht’s Sauna Blog
“I asked for a very practical sauna, as I use it in the Finnish style for bathing, and Rob met all my specifications. He also went above and beyond to give it a quality feel with some very thoughtful finishing touches.”
—Heidi, New York