The rooms and the materials
Eight photographs of the rooms at Cedar Hollow Day Spa and of the things set out in them. None of them shows a guest, and none of them was taken while a service was under way.
I The sauna
One photograph, because the cedar sauna is a single room and not a circuit of them.
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01 The cedar sauna, with the slatted bench running the length of the wall; the ninety-minute sauna and quiet room service is time spent here and in the quiet room beside it.
II Wood and cloth
What the rooms are lined with and what is stacked in them, at the distance a guest would actually notice it.
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02 A plain wooden stool on the tiled floor of the sauna, which is where a folded towel is left so that nobody has to sit straight on warm wood. -
03 Towels folded and stacked with a rose laid on top, as they are found in each treatment room; towels, robes and slippers are provided, so a guest brings nothing. -
04 The wood-lined sauna seen from the panelled wall outside it, with the door standing open, which is how it is left when nobody has it booked.
III The treatment rooms
A room set out before a guest walks in, and the table a booked service happens on.
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05 Roses and lit candles standing on a low table, which is the way a treatment room is set out before a guest arrives rather than after. -
06 A treatment room under low light with the table already made up, which is where the signature massage runs for either sixty or ninety minutes.
IV Stone and light
Stone and plaster, photographed for the surfaces themselves rather than for the rooms they sit in.
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07 A stone bench set into a tiled wall, photographed for the surface rather than the room: cool, smooth stone of the kind warmed in water for the warm stone service. -
08 Small lights set into the dome above the bathing room, which is kept dim so the room is read by its stonework rather than by its fittings.
Start with the introductory visit
It lasts twenty minutes and carries no charge, and it ends by settling which of the six services suits the visit being planned, and what that service costs.