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A sauna business in Albany, California, is also a piece of city history. The Albany Sauna on Solano Avenue, built in 1934, provides authentic Finnish sauna to people who keep the practice as a part of their heritage or who just want the benefits: relaxation, increased circulation, and reduced muscle and arthritis pain. (Note to students: sauna and massage sounds perfect for celebrating acing a test with the help of an Albany tutor!)

The original business, built by Finnish-American Henry Walter Lundgren, was called the Albany Steam Baths. Lundgren built the facility for the Scandinavians who populated the East Bay. At the time, Finnish-style bathhouses were all the rage in North America; the Albany Sauna is one of only a handful that are still open to the public.

Back then, there was a healthy Finnish population in nearby West Berkeley, and Lundgren focused his building projects on helping the Finnish to retain a piece of their culture. Not only did he build the steam baths, he also built the Finnish Hall in Berkeley and was a founding member of the Finnish Lodge (Lodge #21). The Finnish Hall was a prominent venue for meetings of the Finnish community. Other churches, political organizations, and local schools used it as well.

Although Finnish never dominated the population in Albany, they were still highly visible because of their communal-type organizations such as halls and churches. Many Finnish moved into the area when the Finnish district burned during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

In 1950, Lundgren sold the sauna to Finnish-Americans Wayne and Sima Werronen; the couple then sold it to the current owners, who are of Scandinavian descent. The facility now includes the original four sauna rooms plus three hot tub rooms and three massage/treatment rooms.

The Method
Every morning at Albany Sauna, the original brick furnace is lit at 5:00. The dense spring rocks are heated for up to seven hours, depending on the previous day’s usage. When the damper is opened and the valve pulled to release water onto the rocks directly below, clear steam is generated, producing an authentic Finnish sauna experience. Fresh air is available to each room due to a floor-level flute. Benches are elevated to take advantage of hot air rising.

At Albany Sauna, each sauna room is private and fits up to four people. Rooms are available for thirty-, forty-five-, or sixty-minute appointments. Massages can be scheduled for sixty or ninety minutes or two hours and come with a thirty-minute sauna.

Part of Finnish Culture
The sauna is essential to Finnish culture: there are over five million residents in Finland and over two million saunas. Lundgren would have been delighted to learn that in March 2017, Albany Sauna hosted a traveling sauna associated with Finland 100, a celebration of Finland’s 100 years of independence. Albany tutors can use the prevalence of sauna in Finnish history to teach their students about Finland.