Bathhouse is bringing 36,000 square feet of Bitcoin-powered pools and ‘party’ saunas to Philly

A coed bathhouse is opening in Philly. Its business model involves choreographed sauna rituals and Bitcoin-heated pools.

Bathhouse opens on Friday, Sept. 25, at 1418 Walnut St., transforming the Bellevue Hotel’s defunct basement food court into a sprawling facility with three saunas, three pools, a steam room and appointment-only massages. The 36,000-square-foot space is the largest standalone wellness complex in Philly. It’s also the latest in a gambit to rebrand sweating as an activity that is simultaneously sexy and productive.

“Our business is technically a 7,000-year-old business,” said Travis Talmadge, a certified sauna master and Bathhouse’s co-founder. “People have been building hot rooms to sweat in forever, and pools aren’t a new concept ... All we’re doing is bringing the best-in-class” versions of both.

Talmadge and his business partner, Jason Goodman, opened the first Bathhouse location in 2019 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with a mission to repackage the social bathing cultures of Europe and Asia to suit the United States, where bathhouses’ popularity dwindled as the stigma of the AIDS epidemic forced many to close.

After opening another New York City location in 2024, Bathhouse received a $35 million investment from Imaginary Ventures, the investment firm that previously backed beauty brands such as Glossier, Kosas, and Alix Earle’s Reale Actives.