You Can Take it With You

I just completed my second mobile sauna for a client and brought it home to give it a test run.

The premise is simple: take a small trailer and build a sauna right into it so the client can move it back and forth between his lake house and his regular house. As simple as it sounds, the challenges to pulling off such a project are many. First, creating a roomy design into a five by eight space without creating a claustrophobic box takes some planning. A big window with a  generous view really helps. So does the gently arched roof which means that even a tall person doesn’t have to stoop. And the white cedar I use creates a world of it’s own: entering the sauna, you are bathed in the aroma of the north woods. The color and gentle pattern of the grain is soft  and welcoming to the eyes. It is really this cedar, which I get from northern Vermont, that makes this little vessel possible: it is the lightest North American species, yet no weakling. Favored by boat builders, it is easy to bend, strong and stable; it allows me to keep the trailer under its listed gross weight limit. The entire roof structure weighs less than a hundred pounds!

This one is heated by propane with a Scandia heater. The ample rocks make good löyly- in fact they were still warm when I went out tonight to check out the Moon chasing Jupiter and Venus through  the sauna window.

Several years ago, feeling a need for a change, I sold my house (and sauna), but the new mortgage rules discourage banks from lending to self-employed folks like me and have kept me in a renters trap. I don’t mind the mobile existence for now, but I do miss my sauna. The trailer sauna is the perfect solution: no matter where I end up, I can take it with me! So, if you are a renter but dream of owning a sauna, there is a solution.