Soaker baths: The new luxury trend taking bathing to another level

Remember the days when you’d take a bath simply to cleanse yourself from head to toe? No more. Increasingly, baths are instead considered an essential part of the wellness ritual, with a quiet, peaceful, full-immersion soak becoming the ultimate in rest, relaxation and recuperation.

Top-end private homes and the penthouses of luxury apartment buildings are now regularly being fitted with deeper Japanese-style baths – also known as soaking baths or tubs – so residents can lounge and meditate while their stress is washed away.

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“I’ve just come back from the Milan trade fair, the Salone del Mobile, and all the big brands now have soaking baths in their range, some with steps up, others with steps down,” says Michael Drescher, director of DKO Interior Design in Melbourne.

“Everyone’s now thinking of fitness and wellness, and having a deep plunge bath is part of that. It’s all about recovery and longevity rather than just about bathing, and the beneficial effects on your mind and body from being totally immersed in water.”

DKO has recently renovated two homes in Melbourne with soaker baths. The first, Soul House in Fitzroy North, has tiling and timber to match the curved windows, and the other, Pastoria in Collingwood, uses travertine around the step-down bath.

It’s no less of a trend in Sydney. These baths provide a perfect point of difference that developers can use to distinguish their product from others, and they require less space, since, although the baths are deeper, they tend to have a smaller overall footprint than those where the bather lies down.

The first apartment soaker baths most Australians remember were at Crown Sydney Barangaroo, but many more have followed.

“At the moment, we have them in our seven-apartment Waruda project in Kirribilli, and in the penthouses of Lilian under construction in Erskineville,” says Colliers’ Luke Hayes.

“They’re mostly in the high-end luxury space where people are very focused on a healthy lifestyle, and that small one per cent difference makes them stand out from other projects. It’s a way of people feeling they’re treating themselves.”

Most buyers have travelled extensively in Asia, and these days the Japanese-style onsen baths feel both very familiar and desirable.

For example, Architect Koichi Takada, with his Japanese background, particularly loves installing deeper baths in the houses and apartments he designs.

His projects include Palm Frond Retreat in Balmoral and Cove in Chiswick – both in Sydney – and his own penthouse in the landmark 32-storey Upper House in Brisbane. There have also been discussions about installing them in the nine boutique apartments of Enso in Sydney’s Neutral Bay.

Koichi Takada Architects director Georgia Wilson says that Japanese-inspired deeper baths are certainly on trend.

“People love full-body immersion, but they tend to be combined with a Western style as a full-on Japanese bath requires a lot of maintenance,” she says.

“People love wellness centres, but the beauty of this is that you can do it in your own home. You can stop and take a moment to pause from the very busy lives we all lead, and still be at home – and, if it’s in a bathroom, you can soak all year round in comfort.”