Riverside Sauna 5 minutes from Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Virginia’s first public wood-fired, Finnish-inspired sauna.
We are proud to welcome EVERYONE to experience the unmatched magic of real sauna and nature-based cold plunge.
The Riverside Sauna will re-open November 2nd, 2024. Membership Purchases are Available now and reservations will open in October. The Saunas are open Thursday-Sunday each week.
- Reservations for 90-minute Community and Private Sessions will be available online.
- Community Sessions in our larger sauna are available to any individual, pair, or small group and are limited to 14 participants total.
- Private Sessions are available for groups of up to 10 people in the party. Private Sessions for larger groups of up to 25+ are possible with advanced notice. Email [email protected].
- Memberships for the 5-month sauna season will be available online. Members will be able to reserve slots in any Community Session (limit 2 per week), can reserve 1 Private Session at half price, and will receive a 15% discount for friends they bring along. Members who sauna twice weekly enjoy a rate of only $10 per session!
- Whole Facility Private Rentals– 5:30 pm to 9 pm (or other custom time slot). Host the most unique and magical get-together utilizing all aspects of our facility, including the sauna!
- 2023-2024 Pricing:
- Community Session per Person……………$36
- Private Session 1 to 4 people………………..$180
- Private Session 5 to 10 people…………….$260
- Membership per Season (5 months)……..$395
- Whole Facility Private Rental…………… price varies with group size and day of the week. Email your inquiry to : info@rivannarivercompany
- Community Sessions in our larger sauna are available to any individual, pair, or small group and are limited to 14 participants total.
- Private Sessions are available for groups of up to 10 people in the party. Private Sessions for larger groups of up to 25+ are possible with advanced notice. Email [email protected].
- Community Session per Person……………$36
- Private Session 1 to 4 people………………..$180
- Private Session 5 to 10 people…………….$260
- Membership per Season (5 months)……..$395
- Whole Facility Private Rental…………… price varies with group size and day of the week. Email your inquiry to : info@rivannarivercompany
Now Hiring Sauna Hosts for the upcoming Season!
Started in 2023, The Rivanna River Company has hosted private and public wood-fired sauna sessions at our riverfront location in Charlottesville. Our goals are to bring people together and into the outdoors to build community, connect to nature, and foster health and happiness during a sometimes difficult and dreary time of year.
We are a rustic facility. Our primary cold plunge is the river itself. Our buildings are funky and small, and our bathrooms are portable toilets. Our staff thrive on a sense of challenge, creativity, adventure and authentic human connection!
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Sauna Host Work Requirements and Conditions
This position is for candidates able to work on Saturdays and/or Sundays, 1 to 2 shifts each weekend, with the ability to pick up some weekday evening shifts as well.
Some early mornings and/or late evenings are required. Hosts work outdoors in adverse conditions including cold weather, snow, rain, ice and mud.
This is a physical job. Work requires the ability to navigate slippery surfaces, clean saunas including under-bench areas on hands and knees, split firewood and kindling, move firewood with a wheelbarrow, haul buckets of water, and shovel snow.
This is a social job. Sauna hosts will continually be interacting in a positive and supportive way with guests and coworkers.
Sauna Host Responsibilities
Care for Guests: Our guests come from all walks of life. Sauna Hosts are here to greet and orient guests, answer questions related to sauna, make sure safety information is conveyed, and hold the space for magical moments to transpire during and after sauna sessions.
Fire Keeping: You will be trained in safe and proper sauna stove management, including firing, tending, safety protocols, and splitting/stacking firewood and kindling.
Cleaning: The saunas are cleaned in between each group as well as a daily deep cleaning. Tend to portajohns, changing spaces, and additional indoor and outdoor spaces with brooms, sponges, vacuums, and leaf blowers on a regular basis is a big part of the job.
Projects: During down-time, Sauna Hosts stay busy with re-stocking, cleaning, and doing various sauna-related projects that might involve art, carpentry, photography, sign-making etc. Proactive, creative people will thrive in this role.
Hours and Compensation
Our saunas will be open Thursday-Sunday, November-March. This position is part-time with 1-2 regular shifts per week and the opportunity to pick-up extra shifts on Thursdays and Fridays will be available occasionally.
Staff will be hired as an employee and you will file a W-4.
Starting compensation ranges from $17-$19 (plus tips) depending on work experience.
To Apply:
Please Click on this Link to fill out an Application. If you’d like to tell us more about yourself, send a letter and resume to [email protected]. We will then be in touch if we would like to schedule an interview.
Rivanna River Co. Sauna Details
Update 2024: We are building our second sauna with the same love and care and couldn’t be more excited to reopen in November with this new resource to offer. This slightly larger sauna will be primarily used for Community Sessions of up to 12-14 people. We are once again using Atlantic White Cedar paneling, the Kuuma wood-burning sauna stove, and a large picture window to bring the same lovely and authentic experience to all our sauna participants. We are setting up our first, smaller sauna primarily for private rentals, utilizing its own private deck and lounge to create space and a little separation in our little sauna campus.
We built our first sauna by hand in 2022 on a 20′ tiny house trailer. The sauna features a 7’x10′ hot room paneled in Atlantic White Cedar wood from North Carolina and heated by a Kuuma sauna wood stove built in northern Minnesota. By consulting with sauna expert Glenn Auerbach (www.saunatimes.com), we were able to design a well-ventilated, comfortable, and authentic sauna. All the heat comes from very local firewood, much of which we gather and process ourselves. Guests do not need to add wood or mess with the stove, but they can enjoy a view of the flames through a glass viewing window on the front of the stove. The hot room capacity is comfortable for 8 and cozy for up to 10 friends.
The changing room/lounge is a rustic but comfortable space with bench seating which maintains a nice temperature even in winter. A curtain provides a private changing room, and the space can also be used for relaxing in. If cooler air is preferred, our 20’x20′ deck has many comfortable chairs for taking in the crisp temperatures outside.
Our primary cold plunge is the river. Stairs and a landing that we use in our river outfitting season make for easy access to the water. The water at the base of the stairs is typically no more than 3′ deep, perfect for sitting down for a cold plunge. If river conditions are not conducive to river plunging, we will set up a bathtub style plunge. Bucket showers are always available for those wary of the the full plunge! Their are lots of ways to cool down, and sudden cold may not be appropriate for all guests. Simply relaxing on the deck for long enough can be enough to cool down.
We strive to make our space comfortable and pleasing to the senses. That being said, we are not a spa. We are a semi-off grid RUSTIC sauna, close to nature, best enjoyed with the spirit of adventure. We are very excited to offer a selection of cold and hot drinks, snacks, and charcuterie for post-sauna time. Many sauna goers find this one of their favorite parts of the experience….lounging, chatting, connecting, laughing and experiencing the mellow bliss of a body and mind that have experienced some extremes.
Speaking of the post-sauna lounging time, we are excited to unveil a new space that will allow our guests to hang out, chill, and snack to their hearts content, even after new guests are starting on their own sauna session. What we lovingly call The Cantina has been an open-air pavilion shed until recently, and now it will be a sunroom-style semi-conditioned lounge for the sauna season. We couldn’t be happier about all this, and we can’t wait to welcome you to enjoy all of the components of this invigorating and ancient practice.