Miller Pond Sauna Co.

Built in Strafford, Vermont

Saunas built in Strafford, Vermont

From our land, for the land.

A one-room, cedar-lined building made for real winters, fired beside our brook before it ships. Wood stove or electric heat, three woods to choose from, hand delivered to the spot you already have in mind.

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The sauna

A small building with a point of view.

A sauna is not an appliance, and the point of view is literal. Glass in the door, a roundel that catches the stove light, and a building we place and aim so the bench faces the best thing your land does. Tight, insulated, made for real winters, with a cedar interior fitted by hand.

Seats 6
8 by 10 feet, no foundation
Wood-fired or electric
Three woods to choose from
Arrives whole, placed and leveled

The woods, the heat, the details

01Pressure-treated skids, leveled. No pour
02Insulated, vapor-sealed wall assembly, done right
03Tongue-and-groove cedar interior, fitted by hand
04Two-tier bench, seats 6
05Stove or heater with stone crown
06Vents high and low, so the heat breathes
07Glass door with the stained glass roundel
08Covered entry: bench, hooks, boot tray

The build

Raised by hand, in order.

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01The skidsTwo pressure-treated skids, leveled. No foundation, no pour.
02The shellFramed, insulated, and vapor-sealed — the wall build almost everyone leaves out.
03The cedarTongue-and-groove cedar fitted by hand. Benches on two tiers.
04The heatYour stove or heater set, stones loaded, vents high and low.
05First fireEvery unit fired beside the brook before delivery. Then it's yours.

The place

Named for a pond, kept by a family.

Miller Pond is a real place, just up the road. Its water runs down the brook, through this land, and into the pond our family shaped and has kept since 1972. Every sauna we build is tested here first, fired through a full Vermont winter before the design earns its name.

The pond is our benchmark. If a sauna cannot hold its heat at ten below while the ice creaks, it does not ship.

Most mornings into November the fog sits on the water and then moves off it. That is the view these are built to face.

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One view, four seasons.

Early spring at Miller Pond, bare trees on the hillside and the first green on the lawn around the garden beds — Spring
Mud season. The ice lets go of the shore.

Deep summer green at Miller Pond, the gardens in bloom along the lawn and the pond showing through the trees — Summer
Loons at dusk. The water finally warm.

Peak fall foliage in orange and gold on the hillside above the garden beds under a blue sky — Fall
Woodsmoke and sugar maples. Stacking season.

The pond frozen and snow-covered with animal tracks crossing it and long tree shadows — Winter
The plunge hole, cut and kept open daily.

The homestead

The shop came first.

Blake Traendly raised it board by board in the early seventies, and out of it came custom homes and furniture for half the valley. One of the first things he built there was a sauna, set at the edge of the pond. The saunas are still built in that shop, beside the brook, with Aletta's gardens on every side.

A sauna you order online comes out of a factory. Ours come out of this shop, from this family, one at a time. That is the whole pitch.

Read our story →

Blake Traendly in a denim jacket standing at the edge of the pond in late winter, snow on the banks, the small wooden sauna he built behind him with smoke rising from its stovepipe — Blake and the first sauna, at the pond, 1970s

Friends in the early 1970s pushing the shop's first timber bent upright by hand, the old farmhouse behind them and goldenrod in the foreground — The first bent goes up, early 1970s

A faded color photograph from the early 1970s of friends laying out the shop's timber frame in a Vermont field, a green pickup truck behind them — Laying out the frame

Blake's shop today, weathered board walls and a rusted metal roof in full summer sun, gardens and a young tree on the lawn out front — The same shop today

Aletta with her five grown children gathered on the deck in front of the gardens — The Traendlys, home on the deck

Start your build

Tell us about your land.

The wood, the heat, the spot by the water. A short form starts the conversation, and a person answers it.