If you look Podunk up in the dictionary, it will tell you it is a hypothetical or insignificant town.
The folks who live there think otherwise. In reality, Podunk is a place name on the map, the location just a short ski south of Trumansburg, New York, where I grew up. The smattering of residents, will all tell you that Podunk is very real and very significant.
In the 1960s, Ozzie Heila settled there with his family on an old farmstead established by an even older Finn who first built his sauna (above) before the house in the 1930s. It is also where I learned all the important things in life. In the 1970s I spent countless winter hours there at the ski center that Ozzie established, becoming a damn good Nordic skier and developing a life-long passion for the sport.
In the summers, I explored the creek with his son my good friend Daniel and learned the value of immersing one’s self in nature. Daniel’s mother, Ethel, was my art teacher in middle school; she helped me become the artist I am today, and we still have wonderful conversations about color theory and art composition. The sauna was the heart of the complex of dated farm buildings; there I learned to channel my need to experience extremes into something healthy and life affirming. We loved going from the hot to the cold.
Jumping in the creek in the dead of winter after a searing round in the sauna, we felt more alive than ever. That feeling has never died; each cold plunge I take during sauna takes me back to that creek.
Today, Daniel and his family were back in the area and we went to Podunk to visit the old homestead once again. This time we took our Finnish Blue mobile sauna and parked it next to the ramshackle old sauna, which is now defunct and awaiting a rebirth. Of course, many things have changed in that memorable place. The trees have grown huge or have died; the old purple Lilac, with the rusty sauna bell hanging from its branches, is gone and the brush has been cleared away from the old sauna, revealing the sagging bones of the century-old structure. But the building itself is as recognizable as the last day I took a sauna there about twenty-five years ago. The inside is a sadder story. It turns out that squirrels like the sauna too, and they have made it their own. In an expression of horror at the mess, the Lämpimämpi stove I welded up for Ozzie in the 90s sits with it’s mouth rusted wide open.
The path through the field to the creek is the same but with a detour to the left towards a new dipping hole: a makeshift stone bathtub—with a strategically placed rock to help keep your butt moored—in the midst of the rushing current. The run down to the creek had an awkward familiarity: running all out before cooling off while maintaining stable footing. Still a challenge. And the sensation! Whoops and hollers of twelve-year-old boys came out of us as we braved the icy April stream.
Real or not, Podunk is the same as it will always be. What are memories but unreal fragments of experience in our minds, ready to be stirred up by whirling waters in a cold stream or by the exhilarating steam of a sauna?
The old next to the new will always appear old, until we make it new again and live our lives to the fullest, with no regrets, in the now, and with dreams, not of memories, but of tomorrows.
New sauna and parked it next to the old sauna near the creek.
The town of Newfield, just south of where I live, is known for its rolling hills, deep gullies, and rugged forest. Back when I lived there, I often rambled about the woods and back roads that thread their way through sparsely populated forests. Spencer is just south of there and is known for its many Finns who settled in the area in the early 1900s.1 Mostly, these Finns came east from Michigan in search of better farmland and a life that did not include mining. You can still make out saunas behind the old farms: small, wooden outbuildings with a tell-tale chimney. Some are still in use, others are slowly falling apart as rural structures tend to do.
At the bottom of Van Buskirk Gulf, on a stretch of seasonal road next to the creek, a curious arrangement of structures stands. One is a beautiful, old stone bridge dating from 1818—the oldest in the county—that was restored several years ago. Overlooking this is an abandoned stone house, the windows shuttered with plywood, and the insides littered with graffiti. Although it echoes the stonework of the bridge, county records show it was built in 1865.
The object of my curiosity—an old steam sauna or banya—sits across from the house and alongside the creek.
Unlike the old wooden saunas, this building was built from tile block and concrete with a beautifully plastered interior. The plaster, which is over metal lath, has a smooth eggshell finish that is only typically found in high-end homes that predate the use of drywall or plaster board. The metal lath came after the use of wood lath. My guess is the 1930s-40s. The layout has an entryway where one would undress and relax. A room to the side has a small door at its far end leading to a fire chamber below the sauna room. This room is where the firewood must have been stored, and the fire tended to. Beyond the dressing room, up three steps, is the bathing room. It is all plastered, including the bench, with an arched ceiling and soft curves. In the center, along the interior wall above the fire chamber, is the heater. It features a large chamber of rocks.
The fire passed over these rocks until they were sufficiently heated; then, once the fire died down, the iron lid was lifted and water thrown on the rocks to produce steam.
This construction is the same as modern heat-storage heaters. Remnants of a heat exchanger tell me that hot water was also available for bathing. A side door from the dressing leads directly to the creek.
Up the creek, one can see is the remains of a large dam structure. Was this a work camp of some sort? Were Finns (or Russians) employed nearby? Was it a mill site? Perhaps it was built during the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) era of the 1930s when many trails were built in nearby parks. I can imagine a group of workers enjoying the steam bath after a hard day’s work and plunging into the creek. I can also imagine fixing it up and returning it to use. If anyone has any answers to its mystery, please share them!
Reference: Melissa Ladenheim, The Sauna in Central New York, Dewitt Historical Society of Tompkins County. Ithaca, NY 1986. ↩︎
“The blue of our lakes and the white snow of our winters.”
—Zachris Topelius, poet
Colors used on this mobile sauna were inspired by the Finnish flag.
Our Finnish-Blue Sauna is in the News: Read Our Story > Stay posted on the latest Finnish-blue mobile sauna outings on Instagram @saunasbyrob and facebook @custom-saunas We will use this sauna for pop-up and promotional events in the Finger Lakes region of New York State to showcase our saunas and promote sauna culture.
Mobile sauna interior with the Lämpimämpi sauna stove, tiered benches, and large window with a beautiful view of the fall foliage.Wood-fired from the outside.Lämpimämpi sauna stove.Stick hardware by Rob Licht.
Wood-fired mobile sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas.
Although Glamping is a term that was coined in the early 2000s, the concept of an adventure in nature bolstered by all of the modern conveniences one could muster, or have mustered for them, has been around for well over a century and a half. In 1869, writer William H.H. Murray of Boston extolled on the virtues of experiencing the Adirondack backwoods in his book Adventures in the Wilderness. This inspired an avalanche of urban neophytes flocking to the woods in search of adventure and to commune with nature. These adventure seekers were known as “Murray’s fools.”
People traveled great distances and endured great hardships, such as days of travel over log roads (which were literally made of logs placed side by side) to get to the heart of the Adirondacks. Once they arrived, they sought out the services of guides, who did everything for them—transporting them in their guide boats, making camp, catching and cooking their meals. In essence, these early Glampers brought with them from the city every expectation of service they would get at the finest hotel.
“The mountains call you, and the vales: The woods, the streams, and each ambrosial breeze that fans the ever-undulating sky.”
—Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health
Glamping experience enhanced with a sauna (banya) in tow.
While part of me chuckles at the concept of Glamping with it’s pretense of tender-footedness, part of me is drawn to the concept of rustic luxury. Although I am as far from a camping neophyte as one can be, with years of deep woods experience and many a night sleeping on hard ground, the concept of luxury camping does have a certain appeal to me now. I’ll sleep in a tent on a platform—with lights and heat and maybe a commode. But better yet, with a sauna next to it.
The idea of communing with nature combined with sauna is perfection—and something, I bet, even the luckiest of Murray’s fools never had.
View of the mobile sauna looking out through the dressing room to the campsite. Pile of rocks sit on the Lämpimämpi stove.
Recently, I posted a picture of our sauna fire burning hot and mentioned Sam McGee. For those who don’t know, Sam McGee was the sad character from Tennessee who could not take the cold of the Yukon in the poem The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service. His last wish was to be cremated, a task his friend dutifully tried to complete. The ending had the narrator peeking into the make-do crematorium in the boiler of the derelict ship stuck in the ice on Lake Lebarge. There was his late friend Sam McGee, as warm as could be, calling out for him to shut the door.
Whenever it is extremely cold out, as it has been recently, I think of this poem and the warming power of a hot fire. I love it when the mercury dips below zero. There is something invigorating about having your snot freeze when you breath hard or having sweat icicles dangling off of your brow. I love cross-country skiing in the dark, in the cold, when two hats and two pairs of gloves are needed. One false move, and the night might end like in the story “To Build a Fire” by Jack London. Another favorite read from Middle school when I dreamt of all the great explorers who ventured into frozen lands.
Walking through the snow towards a hot sauna fire.
I remember my senior year of high school, the year Cayuga Lake last froze over. That was a cold winter. We did a lot of cross-country ski races that season. With our skimpy race suits and lowtop boots, we had no protection other than the fire in our hearts to keep us from freezing to death. During the Canadian Ski Marathon that year it was minus 40° at the 8 a.m. start. Celsius and Fahrenheit. If you blinked too long, your eyes would literally freeze shut. Grandma volunteers would slap our cheeks at checkpoints to make sure we didn’t have frostbite (and we still wore our skimpy suits). By the end of that year, my parents had moved to the heart of the lower Adirondacks. The Black River valley, where our house was located, was often the coldest spot in the lower forty-eight. It was minus 25° F for days on end. Thunder boomed from the river each night as the ice expanded. The ice was several feet thick; I have no idea how the fish survived. I loved to be out in that hostile world: skating, skiing, or snowshoeing. It was the cold of a Jack London story. Your spit would freeze in mid air and hit the ground with a crackle.
During that cold winter in high school, I had a hot sauna to crawl into after our ski races. But not in the years after. When I moved back to the Finger Lakes after college, I went back to that sauna at Podunk, weekly, until I could build my own. I have kept up the ritual ever since. On these freezing nights it is never too cold for a sauna; in fact, I relish those times when one can experience the 200° (or more) difference, going from the hot room to the night air. Your feet freeze to the ground and your hair sports punk icicles.
There’s no need to wait until you are cremated to be truly warm. Poor Sam McGee, if only he had a sauna!.
It’s been a busy year at Rob Licht Custom Saunas, and as the holidays approach, it is a good time to look back at everything that’s been accomplished and the hurdles we’ve gotten over and to be thankful for the blessings we’ve received.
We started the year in the midst of the pandemic which made for some challenges. But mostly, the pandemic has meant a huge uptick in the sauna business, as we all became more centered on home life and more reluctant to go out into public for things like gyms and saunas. Besides the several projects I have completed locally and around central New York, I have fielded calls and emails from folks desperate to have their own saunas from as far away as Europe and Australia. I never set out to become a sauna expert, but here I am, twenty-five years into making them, and people are seeking out my knowledge from all over. In the process, I feel like I have made many new friends. The global sauna community is alive and well. At the same time, due to the pandemic, I have mostly refrained from seeing all but my closest friends and family. It’s a strange new world, but I am thankful to be connecting to so many people, if only on Zoom.
For my new friends, I have designed and consulted on saunas from Maine to California—this has kept me busy when I was not getting my hands dirty. But whenever I can, I work with my hands, either in my 3000 sq. ft. shop, which I am ever grateful for, or on job sites. It used to be that builders would simply stop in the winter and spend the dark months sitting around the woodstove reading back issues of Fine Homebuilding, but now we all seem to be out there in any weather. My cut off is 10° F, any colder and I want to be by a fire—in the sauna, preferably. Good gear helps with the cold; I’m especially grateful for my boot warmer and insulated pants.
Mobile saunas showcased in the shop. Lansing, NY
Nothing I do is cookie cutter—I would die of boredom is life was too easy— thus the custom in my business moniker.
This year I seemed to run the gamut of sauna permutations: First, a garage retrofit for a yoga and sauna retreat, then a quiet walkout basement electric affair, then a classic one room wood burning sauna on an idyllic creek, then a more urban collaboration in Syracuse, followed by a tiny personal electric sauna in a bathroom, a rustic elegant wood-burning retreat in the trees, and a distance job downstate. Currently, I’m finishing up an electric sauna in a historic boathouse on Cayuga Lake. I’m hoping to take it for a test drive, with a jump in the frigid water, by Christmas.
Garage retrofit for hot yoga and sauna.Classic creekside sauna set fifty feet from swimming hole. Idyllic.Walkout basement electric sauna bliss.Backyard sauna design, urban collaboration in Syracuse, NY.Rustic, elegant wood burning sauna.Cozy interior of a backyard sauna.
Between all of these, I have sold a few of my Lämpimämpi sauna stoves and many sauna plans. Do It Yourself interest, in the mobile saunas is really big now. I get a kick out of seeing my designs being brought to life by many different hands. It is also fun to see all of the other builders following in my steps. The more builders, the better. There is plenty of work to go around, and I encourage anyone who wants to take the work seriously to pursue it with a passion. I did offer a sauna building class this year but had to cancel; Covid has thrown a wrench into a lot of plans. But stay tuned: perhaps 2022 will be the year.
Covid also tossed a wrench into the supply chain. We’ve all heard the phrase “supply chain disruption” by now. I bid jobs in the beginning of the year only to see prices on materials I quoted go up by 250%. Some materials simply vanished from the shelves. But now things have settled down, and I’ve started ordering and stock piling materials well in advance. I can keep several saunas worth of lumber and supplies in my big shop and insulate myself from some of the inflation—another reason to be grateful for the big work space.
Rob at the shop!
I’ve been working alone for most of the year, which actually suits me fine, especially with Covid lurking. Workers are hard to come by: not only are the skilled trades losing new blood, but I think the pandemic relief made a lot of people lazy and unwilling to get off the couch. Scarlet, now my partner in everything, has been my greatest blessing. When she can escape childcare duties, she has proven to be the hardest worker I could wish for. I could use a few more workers like her: eager to learn, unafraid of dust and dirt, and willing to sweat. She also manages all of the marketing, so give her kudos for the quality web media you see. The business feels like it wants to grow, so if anyone is seriously interested in building saunas and wants to relocate to Ithaca, drop me a line.
For those of you lucky enough to have a sauna, I hope you get to celebrate the New Year in it, for there is no better way to bring in the new and shake out the old. It’s been my tradition for four decades now, and I hope to continue for four more.
Taking sauna with Scarlet by the lake, December 2021.
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