Sweating the Details Outdoor saunas bring Finland to the Northwest Seattle Homes and Lifestyles, February 2003 By Matt Villano Outdoor saunas are as much a part of Finnish culture as reindeer, skiing and midnight sun. They were traditionally situated on a lake or pond to maximize the discrepancy between the hot sauna and the cold water. After the Finns worked up a sweat, they hopped out, jumped in the frigid water, then climbed back into the sauna again, over and over and over. The result: total relaxation. The versions shown here rely on some of the Northwest's most cherished resources, allowing their owners to escape the confines of home and office and enjoy the outdoors in an entirely separate womb of warmth and design. Urban Elegance If you weren't looking for Bob Welland and Mary Casey's Madrona sauna, you might pass right by it; that's the kind of inconspicuousness the owners were seeking. The pair contacted architectural designer and contractor Bradley Burgess back in 1999 to create a stand-alone structure that would serve as both a sauna and a meditation zone. Twelve months and roughly $60,000 later, Bob and Mary had their sauna: an understated structure that anchors the northwest corner of their terraced, 2.5-acre garden. Burgess set the building on a base of weathered granite, the same stone that forms the bottom tier of the terrace, making the sauna appear to emerge from the landscape. He used copper shingles for the roof, so that the edifice changes with age as the owners gaze down upon it from their house. With reclaimed Douglas fir timbers supporting three walls of casement windows, the building evokes an Asian sensibility akin to that of a teahouse or a Japanese lantern. This Far East motif continues inside, where a medication area with a wood-burning stove and a floor of reclaimed chalkboard is separated from the sauna by a shoki-like partition. The sauna itself is surrounded by sheets of a translucent, prismatic material called Panelite, which magnifies light. Two hand-carved cedar-and-white-oak massage tables stand side-by-side on a sea grass-matted floor, separated only by an ancient Chinese granite basin and, of course, a small sauna stove overflowing with rocks. On wintry weekday afternoons, Mary, a writer, finishes work around 3 p.m., and retreats to the building for a two-hour sauna that regularly approaches 110 degrees. In the summer, Bob, who works for Microsoft, likes to open the windows and sit in the meditation area, listening to the sounds of dusk. Sometimes the two bring out a bottle of wine and share a romantic evening together, migrating from one room to the other as the spirit moves. "This is our safe haven," says Mary. "It's where we come to peel away the layers of our lives in the city and just be closer to nature." Rural Asceticism In the lush forests of south Whidbey Island, finding nature isn't as difficult. Deer wander aimlessly across driveways, gray-hooded owls are as common as pigeons, and stars freckle the night sky. This was the perfect setting for the sauna that a Langley metal designer had always wanted. Her husband, a computer consultant, surprised her with the Finnish-inspired sauna of her dreams on her 38th birthday back in 2000. It was a bit of an impromptu expense: When the husband heard that Webster Wilson, a family friend, had erected the structure for his master's thesis in architecture at the University of Washington, he took a look and bought it for $30,000 on the spot. Wilson, now an architectural designer at DT Architecture in Seattle, disassembled the sauna and reassembled it in a secluded corner of the couple's five-acre property. Largely horizontal in form, the spare but graceful structure is composed of more than 200 western red cedar slats held together by four vertical Douglas fir posts anchored in concrete. A covered deck with hard-backed cedar benches gives way to the sauna itself, an enclosed and insulated cedar box with two benches, a wood-fired sauna stove and narrow windows that peek out onto a stand of hemlock and alder trees. A roof of translucent Lexan panels spans the entire footprint, admitting natural light but keeping out rain and snow. The wife tries to incorporate the sauna into her routine at least once a week. "The dry heat is perfect in the cold weather," she says. "It dries you to the bone - a kind of dry that makes you feel clean." She sometimes spends hours detoxifying in it. Her husband relies on the sauna's dry, 180-degree heat to help relax after skiing, hiking or flying. No matter when the couple indulge, they prefer to relax in the true Finnish spirit — in, then out, then in again, and so on. At least here in Langley, the traditions behind the sauna are alive and well.