Bespoke commercial sauna installation: Molesworth Manor, Padstow, Corn

Working within the space

This striking bespoke sauna installation at the 4-star Molesworth Manor hotel in Cornwall was a fun project for our design and installation teams. The arch and scribing around the details of the building, in particular, made for interesting challenges and the large space afforded to us allowed for the design and build of something very special. Working with a high ceiling we decided on an upper and lower L-shaped bench at a higher level to ensure bathers can sit right up in the hot steamy atmosphere. The room at the old old Cornish building has stone walls that aren’t square or plumb so we had to build a complete timber stud superstructure to install into.

A showpiece

The client wanted it to be a showpiece for guests and we think the final build certainly hits the mark. A glass wall to the front and side makes the sauna instantly visible from all points of entry into the room. The glass sits in recessed channels on the floor for a more seamless look and our installation sits behind a beautiful old oak arch. There’s a lot of small details that integrated it into the room nicely like a cladding reveal between the glass and the archway which was "scribed" around all the uneven surfaces and features of the old building.

Thermo-aspen

The benches and cladding are Thermo-aspen. The Thermo treatment process, which takes the timber up to temperatures of 240oC, darkens its appearance and increases its durability, as well as adding a wonderfully toasted wood aroma. Thermo aspen doesn’t secrete resin, splinter or overheat, making it an ideal sauna building material.

The Narvi Velvet

The Narvi Velvet electric sauna heater is a first-class choice and gives the perfect löyly. Its refined and elegant design can be enjoyed in a range of different saunas due to three power options. The 10.5kW variant is a particularly lovely choice in this instance integrated into the benches because the open sides of the heater show off the lovely tone of the sauna stones. The black quartzite tile feature wall also matches the olivine diabase stones very closely which creates a very sympathetic feature. More dense materials such as quartzite also provide additional thermal mass and make for an ideal area to throw on water and generate a soft löyly steam. Renowned Nordic design and efficiency form an iconic heater built with true Finnish sauna connoisseurs in mind. Hand-crafted and fitted with large diameter 8.5 mm heating elements like all Narvi Electric Sauna Heaters, the Velvet Electric remote control unit can be fitted internally or externally allowing for easy activation, temperature control and timing of the heater.