A Designer Builds a Scandinavian-Inspired Sauna That Floats Off the Maine Coast
In a break from his regular programming, lighting designer Brendan Ravenhill crafted a love letter to New England’s functional but cozy architecture.
In a break from his regular programming, lighting designer Brendan Ravenhill crafted a love letter to New England’s functional but cozy architecture.
Brendan Ravenhill likes to describe his summers in Maine as half vacation, half working meditation. Most of the year, he’s in Los Angeles, where his design studio is primarily known for lighting fixtures. But when he returns to his family’s homestead on Little Cranberry Island, a short boat ride southeast of Acadia National Park, he tends to personal projects: building wooden boats, a pondside tea house, and, over the course of three months last year, a floating sauna.
With friends and family, Brendan makes an occasion of rowing out to the sauna for a sweat followed by a cold plunge during the summer.
Photo: Trent Bell
Brendan’s sister-in-law, Katie Garrison, had the idea first, after seeing similar saunas while traveling for work in Norway. Next, his sister, Amanda, helped jump-start the project by securing three crucial items, all for free: an old pine-board finger float for the base; a mooring in the local harbor; and a never-used, wood-burning sauna stove that a neighbor, now an accomplished jeweler, welded in 1979 for a continuing education class.
"This was a very free project that allowed me to explore my deep love of vernacular architecture," Ravenhill says.
Photo: Trent Bell
"This was a very free project that allowed me to explore my deep love of vernacular architecture."
—Brendan Ravenhill, resident and designer
Firewood can be stored beneath the slatted benches, which can comfortably accommodate group sweats thanks to a second tier at the back. A large sauna stove was crafted by Sam Shaw.
Photo: Trent Bell
See the full story on Dwell.com: A Designer Builds a Scandinavian-Inspired Sauna That Floats Off the Maine Coast
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