The genius of the traditional bathhouse is its simplicity: just four walls, fire, and water. For the Garden Club of the Palm Heights Hotel on the Cayman Islands, FOOD New York managed to distill things even further, all but eliminating one of those essential elements.
![lush vegetation divides zones](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/29A4923-1024x1280.jpg)
![outdoor showers at Palm Heights Hotel by FOOD New York](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/29A5024-1024x1280.jpg)
“The brief was very open-ended,” said founding director Dong-Ping Wong, so he took a plane down to check out the site. “You walk out of the plane into this wall of humidity,” he described, “so it was a no-brainer. You’re sweating anyway. Instead of fabricating the bathhouse, could you just get outside?”
![bathing pool](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/0e5fc7be-4e49-4436-85d3-1234e12cbcbb-1024x1280.jpg)
![bathing pool with pool patio furniture](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/65c76469-9a61-4cc6-9c62-aba5cf93eeee-1024x1280.jpg)
In effect, that wall of humidity is a bathhouse wall. But in reality, lush hedges do the spatial trick, carving out zones across a 35,000-square-foot spa with a sextet of pools, a hammam, treatment and locker rooms, and more. “Planting became an architectural material,” Wong said. “It had to have a certain level of thickness, because we wanted opacity.”
![Yellow travertine floors and walls](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/29A4958-1024x1280.jpg)
![Yellow travertine floors and walls](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/29A4838-1024x1280.jpg)
![Yellow travertine floors and walls](http://cdn.aninteriormag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2b461591-51a8-4954-ac5b-4ee5bbc2ce0d.jpg)
Stone steps in when absolutely necessary: Yellow travertine clads both ice and steam rooms, its hue meant to be discovered like sun filtering through the greenery. Black marble defines a roofless zone with both hot and cold plunging pools. “The idea was for it to become a sensory deprivation room,” Wong said. But even here, the sunlight gets in. Connection to the senses is key. “I wanted as little artifice between the thing producing the experience—in this case nature and temperature—and your body experiencing it.” Simple as that.