Shop open Mon to SatShop open Monday to Saturday, 7 to 4. Come sit in a sauna.
Old creamery, 40 Mill Road, Hollin Lake
Hollin Lake, since 1971
Three generations of Koskinens have built 612 wood-fired saunas on the northern lakes, all from one shop in an old creamery. Spruce walls, aspen benches, a stove that takes a split log, and stones heavy enough to hold their heat until the last round.
Four house models from $14,500. Delivered, raised and first fire lit within 120 miles of Hollin Lake.
Eino Koskinen grew up in Kauhava, on the flat fields of Ostrobothnia, where every farm had a smoke sauna before it had a telephone. He came over in 1963, cut timber for eight winters, and in 1971 built a sauna for a neighbour who missed home. That neighbour’s grandchildren still fire it every Saturday.
His sons Matti and Juha grew up sweeping shavings. Matti runs the builds and does every site visit himself. Juha builds the stoves and chimneys and lights every first fire. Matti’s son Eli has been at the bench since 2016, and planes the benches by hand because his grandfather is watching.
Find your löyly
Löyly is the wave of steam off the stones, and the whole reason to build a sauna. Tell us who is sitting in it, how you want to heat it and where it will stand, and we will show you the house model we would build you.
Three answers, one sauna.
These are the same three questions Matti asks on the phone before he drives out. You will see the model we would build you, its heater and woods, and what it costs to start.
Prices include the shop build, delivery and raising within 120 miles, the stove, chimney and stones, and Juha’s first fire. Foundations on rock or steep ground are priced after the site visit.
“little”
from $14,500
The one Eino built for himself when his knees stopped liking the walk to the lake.
“family”
from $22,000
Our most built model. Two adults on the top bench, two children below, nobody’s knees in the stove.
Our most built model, 231 of them
“lake”
from $34,000
Built for the walk from the top bench to the end of the dock and back, as many times as it takes.
drawn for your site
from $45,000
Smoke saunas, saunas with a bunk room, one with a boat landing underneath. Tell us the idea.
“Every sauna goes in the ledger with the family’s name, the stove and the bench height. We can tell you the height of a bench we built in 1974.”
Matti Koskinen
Sharp, stinging steam means small stones and a hot ceiling. Soft steam that rolls down over your shoulders is built in, long before anyone ladles water. Four things decide it.
Good steam comes off heavy stones that stay hot for the third and fourth ladle. Our Perhe stove carries 200 pounds of Finnish olivine diabase, not a tray of decorative pebbles.
The top bench sits 42 inches up, so your whole body is in the hot air instead of your head alone. Most kit saunas put it too low, and people wonder why their feet stay cold.
Fresh air comes in behind the stove and leaves on the far wall under the lower bench. The room breathes, the steam stays soft, and nobody gets a headache.
Spruce walls, because they breathe and smell right. Aspen benches, because they do not splinter, bleed resin or burn the backs of your legs at 185°F.
Week 1
Free within 120 miles of the shop. He checks the ground, the wind, the walk to the water and where the smoke will go.
Weeks 2 to 3
A drawing to scale and one price that does not move. A 30 percent deposit holds your place in the shop.
Weeks 4 to 11
Walls milled, benches planed by hand, everything dry-fitted and numbered. You are welcome to come and sit in it.
Weeks 12 to 13
Piers or a gravel pad, then two or three days to raise it, roof it and set the stove and chimney.
Week 14
He lights it with you, cures the stove, stacks the stones and shows you how much water makes good löyly.
Sample letters, written to show how customer words would appear on the finished site.
“Eino built our first sauna in 1979. Matti and Eli built the second one last spring, twenty feet from where the old one stood. Same bench height to the inch. My father would have cried.”
“I asked for electric. Matti walked down to our shore, looked at the distance to the house, and talked me out of $6,000 of trenching. We have burned wood for three winters and I would not go back.”
“Juha stayed for the first fire and three rounds of löyly. Then he made us do it ourselves while he watched. That hour was worth more than the manual.”
There is always a sauna half built in the shop and a finished Perhe out back with the stove lit on Saturdays. Or tell us about your site and Matti will call to set up a visit.