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Follow reported developments in US sauna businesses, public bathhouses, equipment and manufacturing. This page brings together coverage of US companies and stories tagged to the United States.
Read about venue openings and operations, heater and cabin launches, company developments and trade events. Each story links to its sources and publication date.
Early results of a bathhouse benchmark run through two GWI initiatives: 71% of open sites report positive cash flow; 47% of respondents invested $2M or more.
SaunaShare, Inc., the company behind SaunaShare.com and SaunaMarketplace.com, has bought SaunaNews.com. The trade site covers the business of sauna, which had no trade press of its own in English, and SaunaShare, Inc. plans to grow it.
CBP’s Section 338 list doesn’t include 9406.10, the code for a prefabricated wooden building. It does include 4409.10.90, where CBP put the tongue-and-groove cedar in a Canadian sauna kit in 2012. The line isn’t assembled versus flat-packed, and four CBP rulings say exactly where it falls.
Harvia’s North American surge came with a warning label: cabins grew 44%, steam fell 13.8%, and a three-week factory shutdown pushed about EUR 4 million of high-margin heater deliveries into the back half. The investor call made clear which parts are timing, which are mix, and where Harvia wants to buy next.
Thorsten Bichler left KLAFS on June 30 after twenty years, most recently as its director of international sales. Seven days later KLAFS put the S1 on sale in America. He now shares the management of a 30-person Bavarian builder that sells into four European countries and discloses no North American listing or dealer network at all.
Management guided EUR 3 to 5 million of deliveries out of Q2 and into Q3 for a plant changeover in Muurame. Q2 sits inside Thursday’s half-year report and Q3 does not, so H1 carries the cost and none of the catch-up. Three things we will be reading for, and the two that reach dealers.
Anthony Geisler’s Sequel Brands says 70 franchisees have claimed 200 territories for its longevity concept before a single center has opened, turning sauna and cold plunge into a spec-locked national purchase order and setting up a fight with the independent studios already working those five metros.
What KLAFS calls the world’s first retractable sauna is now orderable in the United States at $44,900 to $51,900, selling space rather than price and marking the ceiling of a home market that just added a $10,600 floor the same week.
Portal Thermaculture opened in Bozeman, Montana, on March 17, its first location outside Colorado and Minnesota. The fourth club in 14 months tests whether a low-overhead social-sauna format built on warehouse leases, portable memberships, and no disclosed investors can grow into a chain without venture capital.
The Canadian manufacturer’s glass-fronted indoor sauna line starts around $7,900 USD and targets the gap between budget kits and European imports. The Thermo Grandis wood creates real trade-offs against Auroom’s thermo-aspen and Kohler’s KLAFS-engineered builds.
The WWE wrestler and PRIME co-founder showed a SaunaLife G6, powered by Saunum’s patented air-blending heater, to his 23.6 million YouTube subscribers. Saunum reached out and gave him the sauna for free, and he tied it to his father’s near-fatal heart attack.
Hannah Goldstein’s social sauna opened its third pop-up at Vulcan Real Estate’s Lake Union Piers. It is the latest signal that developers are using wellness programming as a waterfront activation tool.
The premium sauna lineup launching under Harvia’s 2024-acquired American steam brand is built in Sastamala, Finland by Kirami, the wood-fired hot-tub maker Harvia bought in 2021. The same cabins ship as FinVision® in Europe.
In January 2024, Kohler completed its acquisition of KLAFS, the German luxury sauna maker. Eighteen months later, KOHLER-branded saunas are shipping to American homes with white-glove installation available through Kohler and a proprietary KLAFS FERO heater. SaunaNews was at IBS 2026 in Orlando to see the line firsthand.
Social wellness clubs are booming, but most first-time operators drastically underestimate the mechanical, structural, and operational complexity of building around heat and water. Here is everything the design professionals know that you probably do not.
The Global Wellness Institute’s latest projections show the fastest-growing sector in the wellness economy has more than quintupled since 2017. For thermal operators, the question is no longer whether demand exists but how fast they can build supply.
The 10kW Air heater is gone from the North American catalog. Saunum now sells the Air in 5kW and 7kW only, in stainless and black with a closed basket. For larger rooms, the company steers buyers to the Air L, whose lower rock basket improves the air-blending performance that makes Saunum heaters distinctive.
Portal° Thermaculture went from a Boulder brewery pop-up to four metros, with Austin on the way, in under two and a half years, surviving a fire and building without disclosed investors. The founder-funded playbook, from horse trailers to marine-mammal chillers, is a clear counterpoint to Bathhouse’s institutional-capital model.
Bathhouse’s third NYC location debuts May 16 in Downtown Brooklyn, steps from Barclays Center, with four indoor heat rooms anchored by a 100-plus-seat event sauna that hosts Aufguss USA Nationals three days later.
The second-year competition expands to three days across two Bathhouse venues, with a 100-plus-seat event sauna, doubled international qualification slots, and the clearest signal yet that programmed sauna experiences are becoming a commercial category in the United States.
All four regions grew. North America added 21% in local currency. But the real variable is a factory IT cutover in Muurame that will shift EUR 3-5M from Q2 into Q3.
The Glossier and Skims backer leads the social-sauna operator’s first institutional round, putting Bathhouse on track for 10 US locations by 2028. An 85,000-square-foot LA flagship at the former Amoeba Music site is the centerpiece.
Dutch recovery manufacturer Icetubs will launch in the US on April 23, 2026 with a hot-and-cold immersion lineup spanning IceBarrel, IceBarrel XL, IceBath, and supporting accessories.
Galgorm’s ritual room earns roughly $12,700 a month. That implies about 18.5% seat utilization and raises the operating questions US operators keep ducking: what a Sauna Master costs, what a commercial heater draws, who underwrites a 30-person room at 176°F, and how revenue per square foot actually compares to a massage room.
Steam shower and sauna maker based in Round Rock, Texas, owned by Harvia since 2024.
West Virginia home sauna manufacturer, owned by Harvia since 2018.
US outdoor sauna brand whose models include the G6.
US kitchen, bath and wellness company that owns German sauna maker KLAFS.
New York City social bathhouse operator with locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan's Flatiron district.
US membership social sauna club with locations including Bozeman, Montana.
US research organization that publishes data on the global wellness economy, including wellness real estate.
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