A company in Estonia called Iglucraft is making handcrafted, rather aesthetically beautiful “pods.” They’re technically cabins but they’re also promoting them as kind of a sauna. It sounds like a weird, “ride the snake,” psychedelic experience, but it’s mostly mellow, given the advice the company gives its users. Read on.
Tiny home stories are a dime a dozen, but this one comes with kind of an odd twist. Guess who owns one of these Igluhuts? No less than football’s (soccer, for Americans) greatest player of our generation, David Beckham. That’s right — the most praised midfielder of our age, a global ambassador for the sport, and the spouse of one of the richest Spice Girls — recently installed one of Iglucraft’s saunas just off his mansion in the Cotswold area of Oxfordshire, England.
The superstar even documented the occasion to his 50+ million Instagram followers as he enjoyed the warm amenity in England’s cold permanence: “Thank you to @iglucraft. I’m loving it with the cold weather right now.” The accompanying photo, showing the star resting on a bench outside of his newly acquired sauna, had to have been worth a fortune to the Estonian startup.
While the hut-looking structure looks like the perfect place to sip a glass of wine or smoke, well, whatever, the company has actual documentation recommending that the sauna experience not be augmented by, well, drugs. Specifically, Iglucraft recommends:
“An important golden rule about sauna is: in order for a sauna experience to be one of enjoyment and beneficial to health, you should proceed from and observe your well-being. In order for the indicators of feeling to be reliable, it is recommended to avoid consuming alcohol and other psychotropic substances as well as antidepressants during sauna procedures. Consuming beer and other light alcoholic beverages that is a popular pasttime in the Baltics, Finland and Russia should be postponed until reposing after the sauna.”
Don’t get stoned in the hot tub: got it.
That’s a little weird, but Igluhut’s pods are kind of cool and super-cheap by the standards of American housing these days. Beckham bought a big one — his pod can fit six people and includes a triple sauna, a “relax room,” and a steam room and a washing room, whatever that is. It’s also equipped with foot stools, benches and a heater, so there’s that bonus.
Iglucraft offers a fairly wide variety of tiny homes and the aforementioned steam rooms. The smallest proper cabin (read: tiny home) in the family of Igluhuts runs around $23,000, but the price doesn’t include transport of the device, so keep that in mind. You can also get a place with a second bedroom for around $30k and a fully equipped joint with a bathroom and a kitchen for $36,000 or so.
