No sweat… that was most of America circa 1960. Outside of certain Finnish immigrant enclaves, the benefits of a good, intense sauna session weren’t yet widely understood. But as the new decade unfolded, the secret got out. “Celebrities now have saunas the way they used to have swimming pools,” reported the Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot-Ledger in 1966.
“A sauna will superclean your body, and it will also do wonders for your complexion and your looks,” the paper explained. “It will tranquilize your psyche, brighten your outlook on life, at least temporarily dissolve your troubles and make you feel years younger.”
Nothing that potent stays secret for long, and sauna fever duly swept the nation. “A private sauna became the biggest status symbol of them all,” said one V. S. Choslowsky in retrospect, before something called the International Sauna Congress in 1974. “Suddenly everybody who was anybody — and some nobodys too — wanted to have one in their house.”
Naturally, Hammacher Schlemmer was on-trend before it was a trend. As long ago as 1965, we offered the Saunette in our catalogue. “Sauna bath for the individual,” our product description described it. “Relaxes you completely; and after this therapeutic heat treatment, a cold shower makes you feel like a new person.”
Sort of a freestanding closet “of Philippine mahogany”, the Saunette brought temperatures up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit to, well, anywhere a 6’3”, 225 lb. compartment would fit. “It isn’t all that portable,” noted the high-end travel magazine Venture, “but it isn’t housebound, and can be taken from town to country and back again. A Saunette looks something like an armoire.”
The Saturday Evening Post took note as well: “Approval by Hammacher Schlemmer is reassuring to the image enhancer who wants to be certain that his heat bath will not expose him to the ridicule of the people he is trying to impress.”
At $595 (about $6300 today), the Saunette wasn’t exactly an impulse buy. But it offered enough value to be taken up by some homebuilders as an enticing add-on to new constructions. Williard Homes of Pittsburgh included it as one of “the intriguing innovations families desire but seldom feel they can afford… it has a built-in SAUNETTE, a Finnish dry heat bath that promotes physical fitness, glowing health and beauty.”
(The particular home in question still stands. If any readers are in the vicinity of Canonsburg, PA, would you do us the favor of knocking on the door and inquiring if the original Saunette is still intact? It’s polite to bring your own towel.)
Imagine our surprise when, some sixty years later, we uncovered all this and realized that our decision to offer The Solo Sauna and The Two-Person Infrared Home Sauna actually had a precedent in our own past. Here we thought we were doing something daring, when we were just retracing our own footsteps from six decades prior.
What’s more, at $2629.95 and $3799.95, respectively, both of our currently available mobile saunas are substantially cheaper in inflation-adjusted dollars than the Saunette was in 1965. It just goes to show you: Hammacher Schlemmer is your best friend if you aspire to live like a movie star without the bother of, you know, starring in a movie.