To save it the old Sauna at Podunk, it had to be taken down. The squirrels had invaded and filled the dressing room with a cache of black walnuts. The building was slowly sinking into the earth, and the safety of the chimney—a heavy cast cement affair, supported in the ceiling by a rusty homemade contraption—was questionable. The gaping mouth of the woodstove, its door rusted open, was set in a permanent expression of whoa!
If the sauna was ever to make löyly again, work would have to be done. So a month ago, after careful consideration and much debate, Scarlet and I joined members of the Heila family for a day of deconstruction.
As you may recall from earlier posts about Podunk (Sauna Time, Sauna Ritual,Homecoming, Back to Podunk), this is the ninety year old sauna where many of us locals were initiated into the joys of sauna during the heyday of the 70s when the Podunk Ski Center was a mecca for Nordic Skiing and all things Finnish. The structure’s simple rustic character, which addressed the basic functionality of the sauna with what I call Finnish pragmatism, is the inspiration behind much of my sauna building. The demolition would give me the chance to dissect it and uncover some secrets of its original design.
We always thought it was the perfect sauna: Hot but airy, it made good löyly and was roomy enough for an intimate crowd of eight.
What I did not know was how the materials related to its function: how it heated up so well, how it held a good Löyly and never felt stuffy, and why it never burned down. Aesthetics aside, these are essential components to a well functioning sauna. We often debated whether it had any insulation at all, so I was especially curious about that.
We gathered on a drizzly morning with a chill in the air. Ironically, it was a perfect day for sauna. Our plan was to document the existing structure and take it down methodically, saving what we could and carting the rest away. Eventually, the structure will be rebuilt on the same site, the design as close to the original as possible. We proceeded quickly, each of us attacking a specific area. Beloved details, like the doors and little shelves in the dressing room, were labeled, wrapped, and safely stored. The repurposed barn siding was carefully removed plank by plank, and the whole front facade was Sawzalled off and preserved. As the layers were peeled back, we discovered not only that there had been several incarnations to the structure but we revealed answers to some of the questions I had been pondering. There were several surprises.
As the walls were removed from the outside in, we uncovered many layers and each wall was different. On the east wall, under the vertical reclaimed barn boards (installed in the ’70s?) was a layer of Inselbric, the ubiquitous and horribly ugly asphalt siding that was used starting in the ’30’s until aluminum siding became popular. The product was easy to use and durable and is still found on many economy (or as my Dad would call it: “Early American Poverty”) style homes dating between 1930 and 1960. This was over a layer of horizontal 1×6 pine boards, loosely spaced, which went around most of the building. The big surprise was under these boards: flattened cardboard boxes, several layers deep, between rough-sawn, vertical framing members about two feet on center.
The cardboard was in good shape and the labels were easily read: cereal case boxes from Wheaties, Corn Flakes, and others. This was the insulation we all had wondered about!
A web search of the logo style led to verification of the sauna’s 1935 date of construction. Vertical boards were interspersed with the cardboard with no apparent purpose. Was this to add thermal mass to the walls? The interior surface was initially all Beaverboard (an early fiber board) that had been covered with a thin veneer of plaster (real plaster, not joint compound) which was painted. This was akin to the plaster and tile block sauna of Van Buskirk Gulf I’ve written about in a previous blog post. The skimcoated Beaverboard provided a vapor resistant barrier that held the Löyly steam for the right amount of time. Later, in the 1970s, this barrier was covered with 1×6, tongue-and-groove, knotty pine. Given the current popular obsession with cedar interior sauna walls, I wonder if a more authentic sauna might be simply plaster with wooden benches and back rests? The plaster and paint layers (probably lead paint) were vapor semi-impermeable and thus capable of holding some of the moisture. Surely all the outer layers in the walls were breathable; that is, the allowed vapor to easily escape and not collect as condensation. This is a very important consideration in any kind of construction. But one corner post had signs of severe rot. Did the plaster layer crack here and allow moisture to saturate the wood? That must have opened the door for a colony of carpenter ants that moved in.
I also noticed that other than the entire building sinking into the earth, the walls were structurally sound. So much so that when Tom hooked up the tractor to pull the north wall off, the whole remaining building (already missing its east and south wall) simply hopped along the foundation slab behind the tractor, taking the chimney with it and sending everyone into fits of laughter. All those random layers of heavy boards were keeping things together. It’s not a recommended practice, but sometimes just heaping layers of wood into a structure creates enough redundancy to make it solid. I prefer the more efficient approach of building more with less.
The ceiling repeated the wall construction: plastered Beaverboard covered with pine. The tiny attic space was filled with a layer of cellulose—peppered with rodent droppings, and walnuts—empty boxes of rat poison, and a few old bottles here and there (which probably once contained hooch). One attractive bottle was verified as being from 1938 by its unique design. Probably teenagers hiding their stash after a sauna, but quite possibly, offerings to the sauna Gods to protect the structure from burning down.
As for fire safety, it was barely existent. It was a miracle that the sauna didn’t burn down. There was charred wood throughout the attic, especially around the iron chimney supports.
Again, there were a lot of heavy boards laid across the ceiling joists, which seemed to have no structural significance, perhaps only adding thermal mass or insulation. The roof rafters were so heavy, and the roof so strong, that after it was lying on the ground like a low pup tent, Tom had to drive the tractor over it to break it apart. The metal, standing seam roof, with its many coats of black tar, was in surprisingly good shape, but leakage was occurring where the heavy, cast cement chimney penetrated it. The stove below, welded by me in the 1990s, was so rusted it was deemed scrap.
The cement floor had sloped to a drain but was cracked and broken. The original cement pour seemed hodgepodge and lacked any rebar. Woodchucks had tunneled voids underneath it. The drain had allowed bathing—something the early Finnish farmers needed as the house probably lacked plumbing. The floor will be replaced with an edge-thickened slab as the foundation—with a solid gravel base over undisturbed earth reinforcement with steel.
I consider bathing an essential part of the sauna experience. It is a function of the sauna that informs my designs.
Perhaps one component why the sauna felt so good was all the brick work around the face of the stove—the stove was fired from the dressing room—a traditional design I frequently use. (External Feed Sauna >) This added about a thousand pounds of thermal mass to the hot room. Thermal mass holds heat and radiates it back into the room, very desirable. But it also means it will take longer to heat up. I typically use a lightweight fire wall (between hot room and dressing room) so the sauna will heat quickly and to lessen the load on the building structure. Perhaps I should rethink that and revert to the solid masonry I started building with in the ‘90s. Ironically, the brick work at Podunk was added in the ’70s. The old Finns in our region commonly relied on asbestos board for fire protection.
By the end of the day, we had a pile of barn boards and other parts stacked and labeled in the old ski lodge, and a dumpster overflowed with the rest. Although most of the sauna was discarded, the lessons learned will live on in the saunas I continue to build. Next year, we will rebuild Podunk with modern efficiency but in the same basic footprint as the original. Hopefully, the entire facade will be replaced and the lilac tree where the sauna bell hung replanted. We’ll probably skip the lead paint and asbestos board and use a modern, UL listed chimney support in lieu of the original homemade rig. Fire safety will be based on science, not luck (or sauna Gods). The walls will be lined with cedar over foil (with an air gap!), and the functionality will be the same, and hopefully, better.
Family and friends will gather there to sweat and bathe and run naked to the creek for generations to come.
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.
When building a sauna the first and possibly most important consideration is the location.
A wood-burning sauna, free from the tether of an electrical connection, can be built a ways from the house—not just for safety but also to create a separation from the digital buzz of modern life. Simple and inexpensive solar options make it easy to provide needed lighting. The sauna should have some of the comforts of home but be integrated into nature; near a body of water is always a good choice.
My latest sauna build does all of that and more. The site is fairly close to the house but lies outside the garden gates. It all but hangs on the edge of a small gorge that contains a lively creek in its serpentine confines. Like the basswood and cherry trees that cling to the sides of the gorge, firmly rooted in the ground, the sauna is anchored to the 300 million year old shale bedrock with concrete and steel. The owners built a steep stair down to a small waterfall that flows into a perfect, bathtub sized hole.
Descending the steps may be slightly perilous, but that only adds to the adrenaline rush after leaving the steaming sauna and plunging into the ever-cold water.
As I build, I tweak my design to allow nature into the sauna. With the structure framed but without sheathing, it allowed a perfect view up the ravine from the upper bench, suggesting the optimum location for a small candle window. The larger window allows a view of the wooded hill and brings in ample afternoon light. The view down into the creek through the framing had me imagining a small square creek view porthole, below knee level, that would let in the ambient sound of the rushing creek. Exiting the sauna, bathers face the woods, not the house. The eye follows a crude stair-path up into the forest then down the other stairway to the creek.
The sauna is visible from the road and the house, but neither is evident from the sanctuary within. All that is heard is the babble of the creek, and all that is felt is the relaxing heat of the sauna.
Finishing a few rounds in the sauna with a dunk in the massaging water is pure bliss.
The site is not only perfect for the sauna, but it was a joy to work there, listening to and watching the water flow. Daily, I took dips in the creek to beat the steamy summer heat. Having a site that enables me to enjoy the process of building means I can build a better sauna—one that is infused with the spirit of the place and connected to nature.
Sauna is an interesting word. It is both a noun that describes the little structures I spend my days making and the action of how one uses that building. Mostly, I focus on the details of building and let the details of how one uses the sauna fall to the individual taste of my clients. I don’t adhere to a dogmatic approach; everyone has experiences and memories to draw from. Different countries have subtle variations: wetter, drier, hotter, timed sessions, birch vihtas, etc. My memories stem from my time at Podunk, in the old Finnish sauna. I remember the five-gallon joint-compound buckets used to gather water from the creek and few much-loved, battered aluminum wash basins as well as plastic wash tubs, wooden back brushes, loofa scrubbers, and other unique bathing implements. There was always some sort of ladle for pouring water on the rocks (which we always called a kipper in some misappropriation of Finnish-ness). And there were various soaps and shampoos—some common, some not so, like the dark-brown Finnish pine tar soap, which, despite its comparison to the sticky pine tar we brushed on our skis, actually felt pretty good.
Podunk.
Once the sauna got good and hot, we stripped down as unceremoniously as possible and went in. The first round was always be pretty talkative and end with a healthy ladle-full or two of water on the hot rocks until we had to bolt out the door and head to the creek. If someone were annoyingly loud, sometimes a good löyly would be timed to quiet things down. In the second and third rounds, if someone had bothered to make birch vihta from the tree outside the Podunk sauna, we might take great pleasure in thrashing each other (gently) with the leafy switch. The old Finns would make vihta in the spring out of fresh, soft birch leaves and keep them in the freezer. Now, you can actually buy them from Finland, dried and vacuum packed for a reasonable sum. After softening them in water for twenty minutes, they smell just like a fresh birch tree.
The last round in the sauna was the time to wash: after getting hot again, we took turns on the little washing bench, scrubbing ourselves (or each other) with the loofa or stiff sauna brushes and some sauna soap. Finally, a rinse with warm water washed off all the dead skin and residue of a week’s hard work, and we would leave the sauna all fresh and natural smelling. None of us ever had to wear deodorant or poufy colognes.
Pouring water on the rocks.How to have a sauna bath.Simple beauty of an ice lantern.
Sometimes I sauna with friends, sometimes alone. Always, it is the same: get hot until sweat just pours out of me, cool off, repeat; scrub my skin, maybe switch my back with the vihta, wash up, rinse down the sauna. It’s a ritual of sorts, but not like how a ritual in the church is dictated to you. As in church, there are ritual objects that create focus and help direct the actions, but instead of incense and gold, they are plastic and wood. And unlike church, there is no sin in doing it anyway you want to. The brushes, basins, ladle, soap, and vihta are there to help maintain the flow of the sauna experience. To the uninitiated, it may seem strange, but after a few times in a sauna, it all makes sense. It is just a bathhouse, after all.
Lately, I have found that the top of my noggin does not have so much insulation from the heat of a good löyly, so I have taken to wearing a felt sauna hat, which is sort of like a Shriner’s Fez, which is to say that it makes you feel just a little goofy. But then again, I wouldn’t want to be accused of taking the sauna ritual too seriously!
My good friend Daniel has come home for a few days so we decided to take the trailer sauna down to Podunk, his family’s homestead, where, as a youth, I was indoctrinated in the way of the sauna. The old shack built by the original Finnish owner of the property has long since gone to the squirrels. But our memories of sauna-ing on cool summer evenings are still as vivid as the lush green canopies of the giant poplar trees that stand as sentinels in the field by the riverbank, keeping the creek from advancing any further as it swishes across the valley. On a geologic scale, the creek—the same that carved the falls at Taughannock—slithers like a snake, back and forth, carving new paths over years and decades. In our short lives, we can remember when it made this turn or that, turning a rocky bank into an inviting swim hole or turning the old dipping spot—the one we would run down to from that old sauna, hooting and hollering—into a rocky shallow.
There is a new swim hole now. It’s an Olympic-sized pool compared to what we used to dip in, allowing for real swimming as opposed to the slow rolls we used to take in the knee deep water just below where the pipeline crosses. As we lay there with our heads pulsing from the effect we called being sauna stoned, minnows nibbled on our fresh cooked skin. With this new hole, the creek is more perfect for a sauna now than it was then.
I parked the trailer just on the edge of the bank and fired it up. The fact that it was close to the creek, where the spring high water often lapped the trunks of the poplars, did not matter; this was a temporary affair, a brief encounter with our youth, a dip into the pool of nostalgia. Once it was hot, we climbed aboard and were transported back in time some forty years. My little stove holds a hundred pounds of rocks, all glacial erratics, transported here by the great river of ice in a time before memory. When heated, those rocks are capable of producing the best löyly, letting off a burst of steam that sends us out the door and clambering down the banks to the sweet cool water of the creek. It’s impossible not to let out a few whoops.
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