Austin Dispatch
Taking on Barton Springs One Plunge at a Time is a Hot Idea Right Now
With temperatures exceeding 104 during the summer days, you may be surprised to learn that Austin, Texas is a central player in the growing bathing culture scene across the U.S. right now. In a town that is not short on puns — such as the pepperazzee at a local deli which is presumably a sandwich that’s covered in peppers or the mural painted on a restaurant that shows a donkey and reads Okey Donkey! (huh?) — the city is becoming a third-wave third-coast third-place for exiled west coasters, but it’s still a locals’ haunt. As climate change worsens, and announces itself in profusely sweating brows and the armpits of strangers you pass on the street, it’s reasonable to wonder why here?
I’d expect the proliferation of stock tank pools or a mad rush on the natural beauty of Barton Springs (still in high demand) with temperatures that don’t climb past 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But not backyard barrel saunas and a creeping social wellness culture. Well color me a pickle green with envy. (Is this a local pun that Austinites would like?! )
Across the two-stepping city known for its barbeque and its bluegrass venues, places to soak and sweat are opening and defining a very particular kind of view that leaves traditional Texan customs in the dust.
I lived in Austin during a long stretch of the pandemic when businesses were teetering and the future was uncertain. Returning to the city is a bit like a mini-homecoming marked with old friends, late night gatherings at galleries on the East Side of town, and Michelin level food trucks which serve tacos that haunt my dreams and coagulate my schedule. Don’t even get me started on the local coffee scene. Think San Francisco has the titular hold on specialty coffees? Austin is brewing in it! These places showed me a lot about where bathhouses of the future might be going should the land be available, and the culture amenable to a mixed use property with an abundantly borrowed landscape.
Flitch Coffee on Tillery Street comes to mind where the evolution of scale was subtle.
When I frequented Flitch years ago they served coffee from a trailer (which I learned is actually a refurbished 1952 Spartan trailer) that was raised on a wooden platform and a dozen tables were scattered beyond the deck’s borders under a basic metal shade structure. Not much had changed when I stopped by last week. Except their trailer had moved to the large empty lot of their neighbor’s making another 3,000 s/f available for Texas-sized picnic tables, anchored next to huge chunks of white quartz that seem to float throughout and serve as very large seating blocks, or sparkly decor for this kind of outdoor scene. A few more informal shade structures made from corrugated plastic allowing folks to find shade or cover during downpours had appeared.
Reminding me that programming for the best kinds of social interaction can be lightweight in the right environments.
I assume this would otherwise be a parking lot or a build space for the customers and vendors that do business with the Harvest Lumber Company who controls the corner site. New stores now grace the edges of the free hangout. Like the apothecary commons where licensed witches can find harder to source herbs and an architect’s studio tucked away in the back, barely visible, but enough to broadcast that the people working inside know space. This theme is repeated throughout Austin in which leaseholders build minimally and let the natural landscape do most of the work.
It’s a strong template for bathhouses to come.
For anyone paying attention to the fact that Texas is a culture of cars and cattle (not limited to this but certainly a lot of this), being here will widen your metric for distance. Driving has tended to be less of a reverie for me on this trip although being here has had the advantage of playing insider baseball. After months of remote video calls with founders, and texts about newcomers taking on Barton Springs one sweat temple at a time, it was high time to meet some of these people.
Chronologically speaking, the new wave of spots is still relatively young.
New stove on the block, Bathe Bathhouse, launched their phased openings of saunas and plunge experiences in the Spring of 2025 while Mantle Thermal Haus just opened their doors less than four months ago. The social wellness club that is also a co-working space known as Gevity launched in November of last year while the upstart sauna-on-the-go experience provided by Mark Hellweg of VIM Sauna, which sells a selection of custom sweat temples and partners with local business on special events, sold its first unit in July 2025. Sauna House of course has a location here to fill out its daisy chain of spots across the south, and still to come is a lovely spot called Den Ritual that is under active construction. I’m aware that Kuya Wellness which focuses on ‘whole human care’ has been around for five years but they didn’t hit my radar until my last day in town. Likewise the Peach House, which has a soaking tub and sauna scene that grew out of a pilates group from 2019 into something with more connective tissue, didn’t cross my desk until after the fact.
Bathe clearly has command of the scene both in terms of followers on the socials and influence amongst locals.
Situated not far from where I used to live nestled near galleries, beer gardens, cute bungalows, and a steady flow of traffic. When I stopped by unannounced last weekend there were four white colored men reclining on a couch outdoors, a couple cooling their heels in the nearby Cowboy Pool™, and an intimate duet in one of their saunas. The turf for grass is a letdown. But with an additional soaking tub slightly warmer and custom made by Nordsprings, a wood fired sauna crackling and hissing, a lush sweat temple featuring a Harvia stove, plus the DJ decks at the far end of the enclosed rectangle I found myself revisiting my favorite mini-golf games as a kid and the adventure of slow walking from one site to the next. The space is easy to fold oneself into without pomp and pretension and taken altogether gives off a vibe of ‘we’ve just been waiting for y’all to arrive’ which is a sweet refrain in this space. That’s offset by the thick wooden members gate that’s locked when you arrive but which helps keep up a mystery and intrigue about Bathe, at least for newcomers.
It makes sense that they will be hosting an Aufguss training onsite in July but no mention of it is yet posted on their home page.
The main building behind this soak and sauna garden is where the experience design and experimenting at Bathe happens to my naked eye. The ground floor has about 1,500 s/f in an open format plan that’s counterculture cool with colorful cushions and whispers of optimism. Tired of social isolation? Unfurl yourself here. It’s daunting to create a venue that can be both safe enough to trust the process of serendipity, and legal enough to prevent any major liabilities crashing into your vision for collective wellbeing, but Bathe pulls this off very well. The building’s layout looks like the standard approach to a co-working space and up a flight of stairs along a narrow mezzanine are five other rooms that each provide a unique flavor of the Bathe vision. One room is in fact for co-working, an idea that’s caught on in Austin, as with Gevity, to bring the benefits of water submersion and a good sweat into one’s private chambers and creative faculties. No comment on this setup yet but with so little friction between laptopping in one room, lying facedown in another while someone rolls out your kinks, and leaving the final ringlets of stress behind as you step into your swimsuit and head outside, why not? This is the kind of friction-free environment we should be pining for. Other rooms are reserved respectively for sound healing, massage, and tea ceremonies under the glow of dark purple and a neon light that reminds me of a recent visit to the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard. It’s a new look in a contemporary bathhouse and they own it.
Intimacy in the right arrangement reins here. Bravo to Bathe for their design of this space!
The Cowboy Pool™ is a delightful addition to any flexible outdoor space even when it pops up at coffee shops which has been known to happen. The cooling aluminum stock tank makes a featured cameo at Mantle Baths over in the Mueller Park neighborhood just off of Manor. Like my friend always, says cool your heels.
Mantle is an exercise in prototyping with restraint and a clear vision.
Like many of the best experiences a mullet’s shorthand for business up front and party in the back is applicable here. Or is it the other way around? Regardless!
The outside courtyard at Mantle showcases two two barrel shaped saunas, cold water plunge tanks, the Cowboy Pool™, and an unassuming deck. Across no more than 900 s/f the air hums with a frequency of music that could pull a smile out of the grumpiest amongst us and while it sounds cheeky to say it’s got to be said nonetheless.
Mantle is all about good vibes.
Inside, the check-in counter and Liz Lambert-inspired merch table (read: items that are well curated) are flanked by one of the largest changing room showers you’ll find anywhere. That amount of space to shower is an indulgent choice to show you care for your customers in those cramped moments hurrying between clothed and unclothed. Founder Justin Burrows has a layered why for opening Mantle, that I hope I can expand on and share in another feature length piece, but small touches like using precious square footage to indulge the guest in a waterfall that can’t directly be monetized highlights his thoughtful intention to service the service. The shower wasn’t designed to be a grand feature, and frankly not many people would be as excited as me (lover of public bathing spaces since as far back as I can remember), but a considerable amount of time went into developing the business so that those in the service industry, from where Justin previously excelled in making the consummate grilled cheese sandwich and built a mini empire around salt, fat, and gluten, could access the services most mixologists and servers need after working grueling hours that don’t conform to typical 8am - 8pm schedules. There are more details for another piece than I can’t accurately get into here but the outcome of his philosophy to service the service as he and his co-founder work within the limits of their first site to test their use case is a new alliance between Mantle and HR at businesses that are staffed with hundreds of servers.
In just a few months of operations Burrows has sorted out the age-old conundrum of subsidizing the soak for those who need it by those who can afford it.
CAN YOU HEAR MY ENTHUSIASM BEHIND THIS LINE?
The numbers pencil as we like to say. So if you’re in Austin this is a definite must for a stop over as the doors are still open for regular folks.
Discussing water, in a town like Austin, is a tricky thing to an outsider which I definitely am despite voting in the 2022 midterms from a Texas polling booth. Ladybird Lake cuts through the city but some people just refer to it as Town Lake. Lake Austin, which might make sense to be the name of the town lake, is somewhere else in Travis County and then there’s Travis Lake for sailing. This is a shorthand edition to be sure and I mention this because ask someone what the name of the local waterway is and you’ll be standing around listening to their response for a minute or more.
You’d be graced with a tub of gold (another bad pun?) if you happened to meet Will Mayo on the other side of your query about water.
Nowhere else does the health and vitality of water ever sound more complicated, beautiful, and urgent than when Will dives into the subject.
Nordsprings officially opened in 2023 and Mayo is the lead craftsman, lead engineer, and its level headed founder. (See the Insta posts I shared from our talk last week). If the future of cleaner waterways in our urban environments and natural landscapes is successful because of organizations like Swimmable Cities swinging big for public-private partnerships or the engineering gains of Plus Pool making it feasible for New Yorkers to soak and bathe in the East River then Nordsprings is in elevated company. It’s not so much that you can buy a custom built wooden soaking tub with maximum grain finish and granite seats that feel like the smooth and velvety Valentino of tubs (you can!). Nor the add-ons of 80 various minerals to maintain your water so that it’s pristinely filtered and medicinal (also possible!). It’s the entire way we think about what our water can be in this newfangled world of water + heat + people flowing in a direction that eliminates the slow death of simply meeting code requirements, a process and interface with the DPH that any founder will wax on with irritation.
A use case is being made at the commercial level to return water to its original sacred rite as a place for transformation so deep that many mythologies granted deities their eternal posts over different bodies, seas, grottos, and springs. It’s as if Athena herself, dressed as a stag at a watering hole in West Texas, emerged from the vapors of the malt scented desert and tapped Will Mayo on the shoulder to divulge the strategic needs and principles of craft to mediate a future with water that is not about extracting and ruining it for productive gain. Speaking with him is like taking a masterclass in the value and science of water filtration.
As with all mythologies, the fuck around and find out option doesn’t end so well for those who choose their own path.
Clean water is the imperative because bodies by nature bring their grime into the soaking tub. Detritus is inevitable. So maintaining utopian ideals for transformation is really where the work happens in establishing filtration and restoring mineral levels. Listening to Will pontificate can be challenging to one’s attention centers. He’s going as deep as a free diver on the topic without coming up for air. A little brevity might balance out the important task of selling water vitality. The future demands that we all pay closer attention.
Nordsprings is multi-service and like any business worth its salt (finally a meaningful pun!) they sell handmade wooden tubs, consult on water systems, and make a la carte maintenance options available for anyone just beginning to dip their toe in the water.
In the Clarksville area of Austin another homecoming is on its way designed to evoke the vintage style of country clubs that offer comfort on hot days and cool connections over the course of everyday rituals. Den Ritual is going all the way in with its 50-person outdoor sauna, an apothecary corner, weightlifting zone, and other bespoke amenities. I was granted an early tour of the space now under construction and got a walk through with its founder C.B. alongside another ritualized designer, Mark Hellweg, who is bringing VIM sauna to the market as an affordable luxury. If you saw me on socials taking a meeting inside a sauna the other week, that’s VIM. I hope to share more about both of these projects and their individual products in the coming weeks.
If Austin is home for you, or a secondary work space, there are many convincing places to spend time getting hotter than you might imagine and chilling out with other locals. At the moment we’re seeing big bold ideas being delivered in small intimate spaces with a focus on craft, materials, and vision. Gevity is more co-working first, schedule your sweat later but the idea is beyond well executed. Like Mantle, good vibes and a flirtatious playlist set the mood. Enough that it’s not uncommon for people passing through Austin to extend their trip a few months longer in order to participate in the Gevity experience. Which tells you a lot in terms of how much they have to offer and how thorough the care for their people runs. Connor, one of their co-founders, spent a generous hour with me making introductions to other members, taking me into VIP areas, and inviting me to hang out long after I was done lapping up the lay of the land.
What struck me the most about all the wonderful spots in Austin is that they are all largely run by men, although Gevity’s other co-founder is Connor’s wife and from what I know is actively involved in operations and executional excellence. As I’ve been reading more of Christie Pearson’s deliberately researched book on the Architecture of Bathing (MIT Press 2020) I’ve begun thinking about truly female spaces for bodies to float, soak, and sweat but not because I believe in the sociological politics of maintaining gendered spaces. It strikes me instead that ideas about the vessels for change we come back to again and again – tubs, pools, rivers, springs, aluminum and porcelain basins – of all sizes and materials are offered to us as being energized by the feminine. There’s an idea circulating a lot right now on the internet (for those of us in this industry) suggesting that contrast therapy gained relevance when Huberman Labs began voicing interest in the biohack of our productivity rhythms. Those of us with a wider view on this practice have rightfully suggested (I commented on someone’s ill informed post on LinkedIn) that the flow of being in water and relying on heat to cure us of our ailments, whatever they may be, didn’t take hold once a Stanford backed neuroscientist got in the water and had a revelation. Incidentally, that happened millennia ago when Archimedes discovered displacement and from then on a study of self awareness and the science of water have led towards brilliant insights and creativity spanning many forms in print magazine, conceptual art projects, and short lived performances although less so in published research, until very recently.
The science of these studies interests me in limited capacities. Wherefore not intuition? The future tells us that we must follow the data but wisdom comes in many forms.
What lurks beneath the surface, for me at any rate, is why more women haven’t entered into this space as founders. Not just in Austin but more broadly speaking. If the U.S. is finally taking its seat at the world table of rituals for water + heat + people women should be pulling up in their speedboats with kerchiefs flying in the air and salt spray across their sun-kissed lips. Entering a boardroom or Zoom call with investors and operators, leading the process as informed deities of water from cultures all over the globe have always done.
As always, thanks for reading. The Sweat Temples substack is written for founders, the general public, and brands entering this space. If you’re not a paying subscriber please consider becoming one at the Annual Level which equals out to paying fifty cents or less each time you read a dispatch.
Things are heating up…I’ll be back this Friday with news about the next lab I am leading with Sarah Spoto.
Re-stack if you like. Share widely. Support your local bathhouse.