Soaking up the Hot Life

Ketchum Spas designed this custom tub and surrounding patio to the clients’ unique specifications.

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They’ve come a long way, baby.

Forget the thing sticking up on the deck. And don’t call them hot tubs or Jacuzzis. Buy one today or have the architect design an outdoor space nestled between trees and waterfalls and you’ve got a spa.

Whether manufactured as a molded unit with bucket seats served by jets at different heights, or constructed specifically for a residence at a place like The Valley Club or Golden Eagle, the spa has become an essential part of the Sun Valley experience.

LEFT You can find the pool-like spa from Aqua Pro Spa and Pool, Inc.
RIGHT Or you can find the contained, more traditional tub from Four Seasons Spa and Pool

“We’re as busy as we’ve ever been,” said Jeff Smith of Aqua Pro Spa and Pool, Inc., in Hailey. With 20 years’ experience and a crew of masons, carpenters, plumbers and landscape architects ready to do a project, Smith has installed custom spas at the cost of entire houses elsewhere. “Spending time in the spa is an integral part of the day for many people,” he says.

Smith says minutes spent in a spa soaking and talking with family members are the only slow times in hectic days for many of his customers.

The trend he calls the “backyard spa” escalated after September 11, 2001, when the nation suddenly stayed at home and fell in love with barbecues, decks and sinking into bubbling water.

Sun Valley, of course, went one better than the average American, setting spa tubs within carved wooden shapes, elaborate stone walkways, landscaped ponds and their own little rooms. And for a refreshing assortment of color: recessed LED lights playing over the water.

“It is becoming a staple in new home construction,” says Smith.

Smith has been taking courses in spa design with the Genesis Three Design Group in California, learning how to work with different soils when building a custom spa in Gunite, a type of concrete.

Much of his work involves custom Gunite pools, with or without spa jets. In manufactured spas, he carries CalSpa, a company started in 1976 at the beginning of the hot tub craze. A molded acrylic spa might sell for $4,000 and a custom spa with handmade tile in the $40,000 range. Along with advances in the technology of pumping systems that keep hot water circulating silently, new spas are approximately 30 percent more energy efficient. Many use the same wattage as a light bulb unless the jets are blasting.

Some spas cost the homeowner only $20 a month in electricity, compared to five times that amount in the 1990s. And they are looking more and more handsome all the time, especially in the hands of creative architects and owners around Sun Valley.

Dennis Spackman, owner of Ketchum Spas, says he’s amazed at some of the projects he works on.

“We’re talking extravagant, beautiful, beautiful stuff,” Spackman says. “One project I worked on had $128,000 in tile.”
Another spa was set into a bathroom with a total cost of $275,000 for the room. Jon Nasvik of Cliffhangers, an expert in pouring concrete into shapes, is often called in on such projects.

Todd Johnson, owner of Four Seasons Spa and Pool in Hailey, said his clients insist on a custom look. He installs roughly 50 spas a year, typically hiding them within a landscape plan. >>>