If you look “Podunk” up in the dictionary, it will tell you that it is a hypothetical or insignificant town. The folks who live there think otherwise. Podunk is actually a place name on the map a short ski south of Trumansburg, New York, where I grew up. Despite having only a smattering of residents, they will all tell you that is very real and very significant.
In the 1960’s Ozzie Heila settled there with this family on an old farmstead established by an even older Finn who first built his sauna (above) before the house in the 1930’s. It is also where I learned of all the important things in life. In the 1970’s I spent countless winter hours there at the ski center that Ozzie established, becoming a become 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. And at the heart of the complex of dated farm buildings was the sauna; 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. Many things have changed but some things are the same. The trees have grown huge or even 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 25 years ago. The inside is a sadder story—it turns out that squirrels like the sauna too and they have made it theirs. As if in a expression of horror at the mess, the Lämpimämpi stove I welded up for Ozzie in the 90’s 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 bathtub in the midst of the rushing current with a strategically placed rock to help keep your butt moored. The run down to the creek had the same awkwardness … trying to run all out before you cooled off but trying to maintain stable footing the same. And the sensation! The whoops and hollers of 12-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 in our minds, ready to be stirred up by whirling waters of a cold stream, or by the hot steam of a sauna? The old next to the new will always appear old, until we make it new again and live our lives in the now, to the fullest, with no regrets, and dreams, not of memories, but of tomorrows.
New sauna and parked it next to the old sauna near the creek.
We just finished this sweet sauna: an eight by eighteen-foot building with an ample dressing room, large hot room, and wood storage on one end, all on a 12×20 raised deck. The site is near a cabin and a nice pond, all on a remote hilltop in the Finger Lakes.
The design and the craftsmanship were driven by the concept: a weekend retreat from the bustle of life, removed from technology and the stress of the 21st century. Nestled in nature, the sauna has windows to let the light in and open the view to the woods and pond.
We kept it simple, yet well crafted and elegant. The sauna functions as a centerpiece to the family gathering place and also serves as the bath house—since they are eschewing modern conveniences like running water.
Henry David Thoreau may have had his pond, but what he really needed was a sauna.
Wood-Fired Mobile Sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas.
Although Glamping is a term that was coined in the early 2000’s, 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 to flock to the woods in search of adventure and commune with nature. These 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 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 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.
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.
It’s been a busy year at Rob Licht Custom Saunas and as the holidays approach it is a good time to look back everything that’s been accomplished, 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, 25 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— that has kept me busy when I was not getting my hands dirty. But whenever I can, I am working with my hands, either in my 3000 square foot shop, which I am ever grateful for, or I am on jobsites. 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; 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 to a Yoga and sauna retreat, then a quiet walkout basement electric affair, then a classic one room wood burning sauna on a 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 SaunaClassic Creekside Sauna set 50 ft from swimming hole. Idyllic.Walkout Basement Electric Sauna BlissBackyard Sauna Design, Urban Collaboration in Syracuse, NYRustic elegant wood burning saunaCozy interior of a backyard sauna
In between all of these I have sold a few of my Lämpimämpi sauna stoves and many sauna plans. DIY interests, especially in the mobile saunas which are really big now. I get a kick out 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 threw into 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 see to prices on materials I quoted go up by 250%. Some materials simply vanished from the shelves. But now things have settled down and I also started ordering and stock piling materials well in advance. I can keep several saunas worth 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 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 the kudos for the 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.
Increasingly I hear from clients who want their sauna as a way to enhance their hot yoga (Bikram) practice. It’s a perfect pairing: what better way to follow up (or warm up for) a yoga session than with an even hotter sauna!
Recently a couple asked me to convert an old dingy freestanding cinder block garage into a sauna/ hot yoga studio. First I made sure the cinderblock wall was stable and did some minimal repairs. Then I isolated the block wall from the warm, humid space by adhering expanded polystyrene (XPS) foam board to the walls. This is critical as it prevents moist air from hitting the cold cinder blocks and condensing. Then I framed in the space, insulated the walls with mineral wool batts and finished the yoga space with drywall and the sauna with cedar (with the requisite radiant sauna foil layer and air gap). New windows replaced the old; the dramatic deep window recesses a result of the thick walls. Bamboo flooring over floating sleepers over foam board created just the right bounce for the yoga space, while the sauna has traditional duck boards. LED lighting added just the right ambiance. The heart of the sauna is the Harvia Cilindro heater with it’s 200 pound rock capacity. Amazingly, the old building was plumb and square— the original masons did a good job. Fighting an out-of-square space is the bane of all renovators.
This project was a complete transformation for this building (see below), turning it from a creaky old, under-utilized garage into a revitalized space for self-transformation. Make an inventory of the neglected spaces on your property awaiting transformation and give me a call!
a sanctuary just a step away from homeOperable vent with slider doorFloating Bench, Hot Yoga Studio
