A home, flowers and clay baths
Anders and Erika Höyer settled beside the hot springs. Geothermal warmth helped grow begonias and roses for Reykjavík, while visitors came for hospitality and clay bathing.
THE BATHING HERITAGE OF HVERADALIR
A ritual today.
Roots generations deep.
Long before today’s Mud Bath, the valley’s clay and steam inspired a search for comfort and wellbeing.
WARMTH THAT HAS DRAWN PEOPLE FOR GENERATIONS
Before the modern escape.
There was the earth.
In 1927, Anders and Erika Höyer made a home beside these springs. They grew flowers with geothermal heat, welcomed travellers and offered clay baths. Nature, hospitality and bathing were already intertwined.
The ski lodge brought a new chapter: steam bathing in 1938, followed by clay baths in 1954. Today’s outdoor Mud Bath continues that connection to the valley.
An old idea.
A new moment.
A bathhouse powered by the springs
Morgunblaðið described a new steam bathhouse beside the ski lodge on 23 October. It included a changing room, a cold shower and a steam room heated directly by geothermal steam.
The clay bath experiments
On 26 October, Morgunblaðið reported that the Reykjavík Ski Club had installed a clay bath in the lodge’s cellar. Clay from a nearby spring was being analysed as preparations continued.
Clay bathing begins
Tíminn reported that clay bathing had begun at the ski lodge. The article described interest in its possible therapeutic uses, while noting that experience would have to determine its effects.
Steam and clay, side by side
A sauna was installed in the lodge’s cellar alongside the existing clay bath, continuing the place’s connection to geothermal bathing.
The warmth continues
Today’s Mud Bath carries the bathing tradition into an outdoor, mineral-rich ritual. New changing facilities add comfort while the landscape remains the heart of it.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Drawn from the ski lodge’s heritage texts and contemporary newspaper reports: Morgunblaðið, 23 October 1938 and 26 October 1954; Tíminn, November 1954.
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