Get hot this winter with a sauna or a hot tub

PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY PHOTOS BY JEFFREY ALLEN

Peter Maltby designed and installed this home sauna. PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY On Nantucket, a damp fall is a harbinger of the cold winter ahead. For many, the expense of turning up the heat to 80 or 90 degrees is not an option, but turning up one's body heat is. With saunas and hot tubs, one can get warm quickly and inexpensively, for an extra $1 to $2 a day.

Once thought of as amenities found in athletic clubs, home saunas and hot tubs are gaining in popularity in America.

"I am a water girl," said contractor Margaret Layton, owner of Amos Construction. Layton goes swimming every day in all kinds of weather at Jefferson Street Beach. Yet, when it comes time to relax and get warm, there is nothing like sitting in a hot tub or a Jacuzzi, she said.

Layton is a designer, who at one time worked for Toshiba and Isuzu in product development before moving to Nantucket nearly two decades ago. Amos Construction has been installing hot tubs and Jacuzzis on Nantucket for 15 years.

When considering the design of the hot tub, Margaret Layton of Amos Construction considers the environment and landscape. PHOTOS BY JEFFREY ALLEN Layton brings her design skills to each project and works with the customer in building the right hot tub or Jacuzzi.

"Part of my job is getting the client exactly what they want," said Layton. "Most of the time, kids will be using the hot tub, so form follows function. You can have a sweet hot tub, but if it is too dangerous or the people who want to use it can't get into it, it won't be used that often."

Layton uses natural materials in her projects. For one Jacuzzi project, she went to Great Point and handpicked stones to be used as a part of the trim.

"With hot tubs that are outside, you have to build with the environment in mind," she said.

"A lot of times the clients have an opinion of where they want the hot tub, so it might be part of the pool or inside the pool or in a totally separate area so that it is adults only," she added. "How it is going to be used, the placement of it and the size are important."

The Ever Ready heater keeps the sauna at a cool 90 degrees. Water thrown on the hot rocks in the heater creates the magical sauna steam. PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY Hot tubs are a great way to stay warm and look at the stars, but what if you don't want to leap out of a 104 degree hot tub into the cold winter night before getting inside? A home sauna might be the answer for you.

Peter and Cam Maltby installed a sauna in their home on Hawthorne Lane.

For Peter, who grew up in Denmark, saunas are part of Danish culture.

"Late September is the start of sauna season," said Maltby, a pilot for Continental Airlines.

Maltby designed his sauna and sent a sketch of it to Finlandia Sauna of Portland, Oregon. PHOTO BY ROB BENCHLEY PHOTO BY JEFFREY ALLEN PHOTO BY JEFFREY ALLEN

Finlandia sent Maltby a kit of precut yellow Alaskan cedar to build his home sauna.

"It was very affordable," said Maltby. "And, everything fit together perfectly. It was less expensive to buy the kit than it would be to buy the materials."

This iridescent fish tile is one of the decorative touches that make a home Jacuzzi one-of a-kind. PHOTO BY JEFFREY ALLEN Maltby, with help from his brotherin law, who is a builder, first framed the wall for the sauna that was built in the bathroom. Next, Maltby put the kit together.

Once the Ever Ready sauna heater was installed, with 200 pounds of sauna rocks, the Maltbys' sauna is ready for use at a moment's notice.

"When you sit in a sauna, you are in a bubble. It's a good time to start a conversation," said Cam Maltby. "You are loose and relaxed. It is a totally different world." I

Contractor Margaret Layton and her son, Claude Ropitzky. Layton said most of the people who use family hot tubs are children. PHOTO BY JEFFREY ALLEN