When building a sauna the first and possibly most important consideration is the location. With a wood-burning sauna, which is free from the tether of an electrical connection, it can be away from the house—not just for safety but also to create a separation from the electrical buzz of modern life. Simple and inexpensive solar options make it easy to provide needed lighting. It should have some of the comfort of home but be integrated into nature; near a body of water is always a good choice.
My latest sauna 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 where small waterfall flows into a perfect bathtub sized hole. Descending it may be slightly perilous but that only adds to the adrenaline to rushing from the steaming of the sauna and plunging in the ever-cold water.
As I build I tweak my design to allow nature into the sauna. Framed and without sheathing I could see the perfect view up the ravine from the upper bench, suggesting the optimum location for a small candle window. The large window allows a view of the wooded hill and brings in ample afternoon light and the view down into the creek through the framing allowed me to imagine the possibility of a small square creek view porthole below knee level that would let in the ambient sound of the rushing creek. Exiting the sauna one faces the woods, not the house; a crude stair-path leads the eye up into the forest while the other leads to the creek.
The sauna is visible from the road and the house, but neither is evident from the sanctuary within. All you hear is the babble of the creek and all you feel 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 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 allows me to enjoy the process of building lends means I can build a better sauna—one that is infused with the spirit of the place and connected to nature.
Candle windows hark back to my time at Podunk, where the light in the sauna came from a bare bulb in a porcelain fixture outside a little square window into the dressing room. A sauna is too hot for a standard light fixture, so this arrangement made sense. Later, after I started building saunas, I learned that this was a more modern incarnation of the original candle window, which was literally a window into the dressing room with a shelf for a candle to sit on. These windows are common in Finland in freestanding saunas away from the house. The candle window allows a special, spiritual, summoning light into grace the sauna. Especially on those dark winter nights.
In the sauna tradition, we slow down. The flickering candle-light, seen from the bench in the sauna, lures you to relaxation and reflection. Life and relativity. Could there be a more tranquil way to release the stresses of the day?
Although it is this quality of the light that is so important, the candle window is totally pragmatic in a very Finnish way. A candle in the sauna room would melt even if not lit, so this setup was an obvious solution to the problem of lighting the dark interior of the hot room. Despite its pragmatic origins, I find it is also a chance for a little expressive design: it can be round or square, arched or colored. It can have an organic flare to it. Now, with cheap, battery-operated, multi-colored LED lights and even fake candles that look real, the light can be more than a simple bulb on a pull-chain porcelain fixture and be safe. Even if the sauna has built-in electric lighting, the candle window can be a signature element, one that distinguishes a personalized custom sauna from a generic kit.
It’s in the details.
Finnish pragmatic design inspiration comes from using what is available at hand and letting that material influence your design. There are many places to incorporate little details and personal touches: stick hardware towel pegs, stone-faced walls with stones from your backyard, thresholds of locally cut locust, round windows, etc. Think of decorative elements you can hang above the mantle. In my sauna building plans (which can be purchased and download), there is more about windows: framing information and tips on using windows safely in mobile saunas.
Wood-burning sauna with candle window to dressing room.
Here is a collection of the candle window design and builds over the years in and around the Finger Lakes and New York State.
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!
When the client for my latest mobile sauna project contacted me, he told me he needed something that would look and feel like a sauna from back home in Finland. He wanted it to be wood-fired and to get really hot. He wanted the clean lines and rustic charm of Finnish design and even requested a traditional pine tar finish like what the Vikings used on their boats. As small as it going to be, it was to have the standard two rooms: the sauna room and a dressing room. He also wanted to use the latest solar technology to light it with a soft glow.
But working for an American company where he might get moved from time to time, he wanted it to be untethered to his house and portable, so he could always bring it with him like a cherished possession.
I enjoy challenges. In fact, I thrive on them. One of the advantages of having my own company is that I get to decide how much to put into each project and which projects to really focus on. On some projects, like this one, I get to expand my repertoire. The goal, as always, was to bring my client’s dreams into reality. The result did just that: a mobile sauna on a 81″x120″ trailer, under three-thousand pounds, with a dressing room, solar-powered lighting, custom wood stove, northern white cedar interior, and pine tar exterior finish. I created a little oasis—a reminder of Finland—that my client can park in his back yard. A dream come true.
Saunas are like that. When you have your own, it is a dream come true, a special place to escape into, to relax and unwind. Though tied to old traditions, for many, sauna is a new experience and can be life-changing. As designer and builder, I get to be the midwife for people’s dreams and help them usher in a new way of living or rekindle a past love. As we turn the page to a new year and think about resolutions, what dreams do you want to come true?
Mobile sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas.Solar powered lights on mobile sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas.
All summer long, I have eagerly anticipated this week. I have a cottage rental on the lake. It’s the highlight of my summer, and a much-needed break from all of the projects I have going on. This year, in addition to the usual activities—swimming, canoeing, beach fires, collecting beach glass, and just staring into the waves while sipping wine—I’ve added one more Sauna! I’ve brought my wood-fired trailer sauna with me and parked it ten feet from the water’s edge. Nothing beats coming out from the hot steam of a good löyly and jumping into the cool, refreshing lake. It is perfection.
Mobile Sauna by Rob Licht Custom Saunas on Cayuga Lake
