For starters, the sauna boasts gorgeous craftsmanship paired with a glass skylight ceiling, a thick glass door, and double-pane windows. It also features a Bluetooth sound system that can be controlled by your phone or smart device, as well as a built-in charging station for your phone or tablet.
In terms of comfort, you’ll appreciate the built-in backrest, as well as the reversible bench that’s flat on one side and ergonomic on the other. There’s even a space built into the door handles to set your tablet, so you won’t have to hold it the whole time you’re in the sauna.
A cedar closet had served as overflow wardrobe storage, but the new walk-in closet rendered it redundant. The clients asked that this soothing retreat take its place. “Saunas are a beautiful thing, covered in wood. They exude relaxation,” Goldbach said. The couple’s Clearlight Infrared Sanctuary Sauna sits steps from an adjacent fitness room. “They’ve traveled a lot and experienced lovely accommodations and spas around the world,” Goldbach said of the couple. “It’s just a little bit of that for them to have at home.”
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How a Pair of Empty-Nesters Created Their Dream Home
With the kids out of the house, a Chicago couple who love to entertain splashed out their home with color, pattern and sumptuousness. One long-desired priority: a walk-in closet and dressing room.
By Elizabeth Sweet, April 24, 2024 at 12:46 pm ET
THE NAP OF LUXURY The ‘adulting’ of the Chicago apartment, by local firm En Masse Architecture & Design, included an upholstery upgrade to velvet in the living room.
“THEY JUST WANTED what they wanted,” said designer Lucas Goldbach of the Chicago couple whose apartment he helped transform into their version of empty-nester nirvana. The pair—he in finance, she in fashion—had lived in their seventh-floor home for 25 years and renovated twice, most recently while raising kids.
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
Now on their own, the well-traveled, adventuresome duo wanted to lean into pattern mixing and to paint walls gutsier colors, recalls Goldbach, a member of Chicago’s En Masse Architecture and Design, who devised the plan with founding partner Mike Shively. No longer wary of grape-juice stains and roughhousing, the homeowners could indulge in luxe fabrics like velvet and linen, and asked for decor that would charm the guests they frequently entertain.
A homework room off the kitchen became a cozy dining niche; a cedar closet, a sauna. To create the walk-in wardrobe the wife had imagined for years, they stole footage from a college-age son’s bedroom. “She is known among friends as a stylish person,” Goldbach said. To celebrate the dressing area’s completion, the couple threw a reveal party.
Today, the once practical, family-focused home is maximized for dressing up, hosting and enjoying life. Here, how design helped it reflect the personalities of its liberated owners.
Don’t Blow Out the Kitchen
When the couple was caught up in busy family life, their kitchen’s aesthetic was not a priority. Red-and-white checkerboard cork floors and white cabinets sufficed. The current renovation honors the building’s 1920s pedigree, with dark-grouted subway tile and a classic checkerboard floor. The period-proper black-and-white palette offers a reprieve
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
from the rest of the apartment’s rambunctious color. As another nod to the kitchen’s art deco vintage, Goldbach and team rejected an open plan, repeating arches and transoms found elsewhere in the home. “The clients still have guests crowding into the space when entertaining,” said Goldbach, “which is part of the fun of having folks over.”
Bang Out a Banquette
The study area off the kitchen became a high-design breakfast nook. Scalamandre’s geometric Amazink Velvet on the banquette and lively floral Yokata Bleu wallpaper share enough color that their energetic patterns mesh. The decor here and in the exuberant walk-
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
in closet, the first decorating schemes to be completed, set the tone for the rest of the apartment. “Those spaces had so much richness,” said Goldbach, “and the clients were like, ‘Oh, now that I see I could do it here, I want it everywhere.’ ”
Enliven the Living Room
A formal entertaining room once painted a subdued blue-gray, the parlor needed vibrancy now that it’s used more often. “They find reasons to celebrate,” said Goldbach of the couple. The new wall color, Benjamin Moore’s Fort Pierce Green, energized the space. “The previous iteration did not have the same level of richness,” said the designer. He kept the furniture layout intact but dialed up the level of saturation and pattern mixing, with assists from upholstery in punchy Fabricut textiles and an emerald Chinese art deco rug from 1stDibs.
PHOTOS: RYAN MCDONALD
Dress Up the Closet
Goldbach describes the wife as a “very bold, very confident dresser.” Fittingly, as a jumping-off point for her dream closet’s palette, she was drawn to Mary Katrantzou’s unrestrained Botanical Paradise Rug from the Rug Company. A citrine window seat and a Roman shade in a bubbly Voutsa print play supporting roles. Benjamin Moore’s Franklin White, a subtle peachy-pink, coats the walls and cabinets. “In a closet, you need a color that doesn’t affect how you look in the clothes you’re trying on,” said Goldbach. The shade delivers “a bouncing glow on the skin.”
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
Let Color Clothe You
The couple’s new dressing room, which claimed square footage from a closet, a hallway and their son’s bedroom, gave the husband more wardrobe storage, too. It also makes the pair’s bedroom suite an experience, says Goldbach, who notes that the wife “loves when rooms envelope you in a color.” Doing the job here: Benjamin Moore’s Regent Green on the cabinetry and the ceiling’s venetian-plaster coating. The same fabric found in the Roman shade of the wife’s walk-in closet reappears here as contents-concealing curtains.
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
Gussy Up the Guest Room
Goldbach and his team updated an existing guest room to suit visitors and their son (whose room became the new closet) when he is in town. Artwork and a zebra rug from his old digs make the son feel at home, but in the sophisticated context of a plaid, menswear-inspired wall covering by Phillip Jeffries, luxe bedding and midcentury Lane night tables, his pieces “live in a more grown-up way,” said Goldbach.
PHOTO: RYAN MCDONALD
Get Well, Be Well
A cedar closet had served as overflow wardrobe storage, but the new walk-in closet rendered it redundant. The clients asked that this soothing retreat take its place. “Saunas are a beautiful thing, covered in wood. They exude relaxation,” Goldbach said. The couple’s Clearlight Infrared Sanctuary Sauna sits steps from an adjacent fitness room. “They’ve traveled a lot and experienced lovely accommodations and spas around the world,” Goldbach said of the couple. “It’s just a little bit of that for them to have at home.”
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Appeared in the April 27, 2024, print edition as ‘Home of The Free’.
Bosworth, founder of the beauty brand Love Wellness, technically has a home office in her New York City apartment. But, more often than not, she found herself working from her kitchen table, preferring the airier space over the closed-off room whose classification was rooted more in realtor-speak than reality. And since this is New York City, where every square foot is a precious (and pricey) one, Bosworth was determined not to let the “office” go to waste. After months of deliberation, she installed a Clearlight Infrared sauna and covered the rest of the room in gym flooring ordered off of Amazon. Now, she uses the space almost daily, either for a dry heat session or for streaming an online workout class. “I have some metal toxicity and residual Epstein-Barr I’m working on, and an infrared sweat helps to detoxify the body, especially for anyone dealing with any kind of autoimmune issue,” she says of her choice. “I converted the space that got no use into one I use frequently.”
“The infrared sauna is next in my game-day routine, usually 15 minutes. During that time, I’m usually listening to reggae music.” (Devin uses a Clearlight infrared sauna.
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The NBA guard, who chugs a glass of water every morning and always brings a Diptyque candle on the road, says this is the year for a Phoenix Suns championship.
Clearlight Infrared of Berkeley, Calif., has taken inspiration from Murphy beds to produce one-person prototypes that can collapse from 4 feet wide to 2 feet, says company president Andy Kaps.
By Jen Murphy, March 9, 2021 at 1:00 pm ET
Helsinki’s Löyly complex has three saunas that accommodate 96 people and are linked by walkways to locker rooms, lounge areas and a restaurant. PHOTO: KUVATOIMISTO KUVIO OY
Saunas offer a medication-free way to relax and socialize, and recent studies show health benefits too: sitting in an enclosure where a wood stove or electric heater has pushed temperatures of 195 degrees or higher can ease chronic stress and muscle pain and lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and other serious ailments.
“Chronic stress leads to inflammation, poor sleep, high blood pressure,” Christopher Minson, a cardiovascular physiologist at the University of Oregon, says, adding that infrared saunas, which use light to heat the body, deliver similar benefits at lower temperatures. “When we go through heat therapy, we boost antioxidant activity in the body and enter a parasympathetic, or rest and digest state.”
Though saunas may be a mainstay of high-end gyms and spas, their space requirements and high cost—which can exceed $10,000—have put them beyond the reach of many Americans. A host of innovations, including electronic controls and space-saving designs, promise to make saunas more popular and easier to integrate into our daily routines.
A look at how innovation and technology are transforming the way we live, work and play. PreviewSubscribe
Thinking Small
German manufacturer Klafs designed a one-person sauna that with the push of a button collapses to the size of a bookcase. PHOTOS: KLAFS GMBH & CO. KG(2)
Some manufacturers are developing compact saunas to meet the needs of those who lack a backyard or basement big enough to hold a conventional home sauna. Klafs, a manufacturer in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany, designed a one-person sauna that with the push of a button collapses to the size of a bookcase. When it goes on sale in the U.S. later this year, it is expected to retail for about $15,000.
Clearlight Infrared of Berkeley, Calif., has taken inspiration from Murphy beds to produce one-person prototypes that can collapse from 4 feet wide to 2 feet, says company president Andy Kaps. The company has no time frame yet to market the saunas, he says, as the cost would likely be 50% higher than a typical model.
Corey Smee, manager of Health Mate, a sauna maker in Buena Park, Calif., sees a trend toward even more compact saunas. His company’s $2,900 infrared half-sauna—essentially a chair within a red cedar box that encloses the legs and torso of a single person—has sold well during the pandemic. “You can rest your laptop on the top and Zoom while saunaing,” he says. “It’s perfect for a work-from-home lifestyle, and it’s mobile so it can be pushed around and easily stored.”
Greener Heat
Finland-based Harvia recently introduced a stove that uses a special air control system to cut particulate emissions. PHOTO: HARVIA
If the physical footprint of saunas is shrinking, so is their carbon footprint—with the development of low-emission stoves. Researchers in Finland estimate that sauna stoves are the nation’s biggest single source of fine particulate and black carbon emissions. Harvia, in Muurame, Finland, recently introduced a stove that uses a special air control system to cut particulate emissions by 20% and carbon emissions by 70%.
Another Finnish company, Tampere-based Lytefire, last year debuted what it calls the first zero-emissions sauna—a five-person enclosure that runs on solar energy. Located atop a 6,500-foot-peak at the ski resort of Heuberge in the Swiss Alps, the sauna was erected alongside a panel of 48 mirrors on a wooden platform that rotates to keep the mirrors facing the sun throughout the day so they can direct sunlight onto the sauna rocks. And Harvia is now working with Lytefire on the development of home saunas that use solar energy that can charge batteries to provide more consistent sauna stove heat, according to Harvia executive Päivi Juolahti.
Playing the Game
Sunlighten, a manufacturer in Overland Park, Kan., is making a sauna that can be controlled remotely via an app. PHOTO: SUNLIGHTEN
Some electric sauna heaters can be controlled remotely via an app or a voice assistant like Amazon’s Alexa so users can order up the heat even before they arrive home. Remote control is just part of a nascent high-tech makeover that sauna makers envision. “We have a patent out on technology that allows our app to interface with other devices, like your Garmin or Whoop,” says Aaron Zack, co-owner of Sunlighten, a manufacturer in Overland Park, Kan. “The idea is that an embedded glass control panel on the sauna will allow you to personalize your experience to settings like muscle recovery based on biomarkers such as heart rate and blood pressure.”
Mr. Zack also envisions the use of mobile notifications to remind users of sauna time and even gamifying the experience, with users awarded badges for fitting in a certain number of sauna sessions a week.
Hot Entertainment
Löyly, an 11,500-square-foot sauna complex on Helsinki’s waterfront, opened in 2016. PHOTO: KUVATOIMISTO KUVIO OY
In the U.S., sauna time is often viewed as a private experience—even though studies suggest that chatting with others during sauna sessions amplifies the health benefits, according to Dr. Minson, the University of Oregon physiologist. “Most Americans don’t think of the sauna as a place to socially interact in the way Europeans do,” he says.
What health benefits have you found from sauna use? Join the conversation below.
Europeans are taking sauna socializing to the next level. Finns can watch hockey games at Helsinki’s Hartwall Arena from a 20-person sauna skybox. Also in Helsinki is Löyly, an 11,500-square-foot pyramid-shaped sauna complex on the city’s waterfront that opened in 2016. Its three separate saunas accommodate 96 people and are linked by walkways to locker rooms, lounge areas and a restaurant. Anu Puustinen, co-founder of Avanto Architects, the Helsinki-based firm behind Löyly, says there is rising demand for such venues.
Another hot trend is Sauna Aufguss, which mixes high temperatures and live entertainment in which performers wave towels to circulate the steamy air. “The younger generation is really gravitating to Sauna Aufguss,” says Lasse Eriksen, development manager for Oslo-based Nordic Hotels & Resorts. “For 15 minutes you are entertained by a ballet dancer or musician. The heat and steam enhance the excitement of the performance and you get a good sweat in the process.”
Eriksen designed a 100-person, 700-square-foot sauna amphitheater that opened in 2018 at Farris Bad Resort in Larvik, Norway, and is now consulting on the first U.S. sauna amphitheater, set to open later this year in Las Vegas.
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