We’re in love with the gorgeous, tranquil cedar sauna we’ve recently installed at the Halcyon, 301 East 51st Street. Wrapped in Clear Western Red Cedar, this 14′ x 6′ sauna anchors the building’s amenity-rich Aqua Spa, 24 stories above Manhattan’s East Side, with oversized windows overlooking the East River and Roosevelt Island.
Drawn in CAD and cut on a custom CBC machine, our Design Principal hand-selected quarter-sawn cedar boards of the highest quality, carefully matching grain and color. Custom fabricated off site to allow for a smooth installation, we trimmed the sections on site for a perfect fit. All fasteners were cleverly concealed using matching cedar plugs to achieve an attractive, uniform finish. Perfectly sized for 3 or 4 people, this sauna is already a huge success and one of the most popular and talked about amenities of the plush Sky Lounge.
This job gave us some challenges- after some misgivings about the initial design of the seating, we redesigned the bench slats to run horizontally instead of vertically, giving the bench a smoother and more comfortable surface for users to relax for as long as they like. Our redesign also simplified the fabrication of the bench, eliminating the need to steam and press cedar slats into unnatural curves around the contours of the bench brackets. The redesign will extend the life of the bench as well as improve functionality, and helped to reduce the cost to the client. Howard K. Freilich, President & CEO of Blondie’s Treehouse, supervised a team of five to install the sauna, decking, fencing and plantings over a five day period. Plantings include boxwood, clematis and blue holly ilex sourced and contract grown by Country Gardens on Long Island.
