Longtime friends Jason Goodman and Travis Talmadge decided to partner on the Williamsburg Bathhouse in Brooklyn, New York because they noticed a missing piece in the wellness puzzle. “We’re both religious about peak performance, and realized that the market for recovery was underserved,” Goodman says. The bathhouse heeds this call as “a recovery oasis that is inherently social,” adds Talmadge.
The duo tasked Verona Carpenter Architects to transform a former 1930s-era soda factory into an urban wellness hideaway, with many of the buildings original features preserved, including vaulted ceilings and a 100-foot-tall smokestack that is now the private ritual bath area. The ground floor houses a light and airy restaurant, locker rooms, and retail options, while the decidedly moodier 6,500-square-foot subterranean spa features three illuminated thermal pools, dry and tropical saunas, a steam room, treatment rooms, and a sensory deprivation tank. “[It’s] a home for people who strive to perform, look, and feel their very best,” says Talmadge.
The pair is now looking into a second New York location, with hopes to expand to other major cities in the future. But that doesn’t mean their first operation came easy. “We would have done a few things differently if we had a crystal ball,” says Talmadge, “but part of the fun has been figuring it all out.”
This article originally appeared in HD’s March/April 2020 issue.
