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Chozu Bath and Tea Gardens, a Welcome Retreat
Ilene Rubinstein’s background in healing arts and her impressive travels through Asia and Europe inspired Chozu Bath and Tea Gardens. The meticulously planned and managed Ashland venue offers a safe, professional and beautiful setting for self-healing.
Chozu was born in 2005 when Rubinstein purchased the historic home that was adjacent to her Pilates studio in Ashland’s Railroad District. The building and property were in great need of stewardship and Rubenstein spent three years working hand-in-hand with the city’s planning commission to painstakingly remodel the house and surroundings into her new business.
The result of Rubinstein’s perseverance is a Japanese-style bathhouse that’s not just a full-menu day spa, but an entire package of accommodations and services that includes a tea and sake house, two guest cottages, sauna, steam rooms, saltwater pools, cold plunge, inviting fountains and a retail line of Japanese and local products.
The lobby—with its smoothly curving angles and corners that aim for the sky—evokes a faraway land of Japanese-style healing. A color palette of earth tones and moss green is accented by dark wood features including several custom-built 230-pound entry doors made of mesquite wood.
Off the lobby is an intimate tea and sake house that’s open to spa-goers and the public. Decorated with a Jizai (a traditional hanging Japanese tea kettle), intricate pottery and tiny, budding flowers, the tea house menu offers everything from authentic green and flower teas to Japanese sake, sweets, savories, appetizers and hearty steamed rice dishes.
Beyond the lobby and restaurant, several private rooms are available for spa services such as Swedish massage, deep tissue massage, detoxifying body wraps, Japanese reflexology called Shiatsu and traditional energy healings called Reiki. A two-and-a-half-hour couples retreat offers dual massages paired with tea, lunch and a visit to the saunas and pools for only $100 each.
Serenity prevails in the outdoor bath gardens. Two private saltwater pools, one shared saltwater pool, a dry sauna and men’s and women’s dressing rooms outfitted with steam rooms are available to bathers. Dressing rooms are decorated with intricate Italian tile murals crafted by local artisan Kendall McCullough and feature lockers, warmed benches, radiant floor heat and showers where guests can use complimentary exfoliating salts to cleanse the skin before enjoying the steam rooms. Once inside the tiled steam room, just hit the switch and wait for the steam to surround your body and permeate your sinuses, lungs and pores, leaving you feeling purified and rid of toxins.
Step outside to visit saltwater pools warmed to perfection, countered by the bracing cold-water plunge. Embrace the heightened level of relaxation you’re sure to feel as you sit in the saltwater pools. Guests have even been known to peacefully catnap while partially submerged, feeling a cool breeze move across the warm water as meditative music plays softly behind trickling water fountains sparkling with ambient light. (Budget tip: An entire hour and a half spent in the pools, sauna and steam rooms costs only $25 per person; spa services, food and lodging are additional.)
Don’t want to leave yet? Stay at the guest cottages where orthopedic beds and pillows, kitchenettes, fireplaces, double showers and Wifi access lay in wait. Enjoy an overnight or weekend getaway filled with a host of authentic green teas and sakes accompanied by a list of traditional Japanese foods. Indulge in several lines of organic, chemical-free spa products: Komenuko Bijin body care products produce the health and shine characteristic of Japanese hair and skin; the Redflower product line offers lotions so divine you must take home a bottle; and locally-owned Coastal Soapworks offer bamboo and charcoal soaps molded into elaborate lotus flowers and dragonflies.
Chozu’s overarching approach is simple: Plunge into tranquility. Once you do, you’ll experience the traditional Japanese philosophy of self-care, relaxation, rejuvenation and the soothing of tensions.
words by Lindsay Dove
photography by Jared Cruce