About

Good Design

We followed the 3 core principals of Finnish sauna design:

  • Heating - Our NZ-made sweaty meg sauna stove has more than enough power and stone capacity to maintain the temperature at 85C and create great loyly. The super-insulating powers of natural expanded cork allow the sauna to maintain even temperatures and acts as an incredible thermal sink. The height of the benches brings sauna bathers above the rocks so even your feet stay warm :D The slope of the roof helps to guide the loyly (steam) overhead and down onto your shoulders.

  • Ventilation - The draft effect created by the stove along with 4 carefully placed vents ensure that the air never becomes stale or high in CO2 which makes for a much more comfortable sauna experience.

  • Surroundings - The minimal design and unified material pallet create a calm environment. The location at the Nelson Yacht Club looking out onto the cut and the Tasman Sea is mesmerizing and only steps from a natural cold plunge.

My Story

Hi - I'm Joe! After moving to Nelson from rainy Portland, Oregon in 2022 I realized that Nelson had most things that I love except for a traditional wood-fired sauna experience.

I missed the incredible feeling of combining sauna with cold plunge on a regular basis and the amazing friendships and community that I'd built around sauna. I'd already built a home sauna and helped many friends to do the same so I went to work designing and building a mobile sauna.

After Several months of learning how to build and source materials in a new country, I began the lengthy process of finding a location and securing the required council resource consents. I'm thrilled to finally be able to share my dream with the local community of Nelson, NZ!