Photographs, and what they are of

The rooms, the basins, the towels, and the alley outside. Photographed on ordinary working days in available light, because the rooms are dim and we would rather show you that than light them for a camera.

Plates 01–10
Sawtelle Japantown
Available light

A guest reclining at a white basin with her eyes closed and a towel around her shoulders, while a therapist's hand works lather through her wet hair — Plate 01

At the basin, room three

The second cleanse, worked in with the pads of the fingers. Water is held at body temperature, never hot.

Close view of a guest lying with her eyes closed on a woven cream cushion while a therapist cradles the base of her skull with one hand — Plate 02

The occipital ridge

Where the dry release begins, and where most guests stop talking.

Abstract close view of a dark blue-green water surface in low rolling swells — Plate 03

Water, softened and filtered

Los Angeles water is hard enough to matter. Everything at the basin runs through a softener and a carbon filter first.

A guest resting back on a cream leather headrest with her eyes closed, photographed from above — Plate 04

Between the second cleanse and the mask

The long middle, with the water off and nothing scheduled against it.

Black and white photograph of four black reclining chair headrests in a row with white ceramic basins behind them, against a plain pale wall — Plate 05

The four basins, before the walls went in

Photographed in August 2021, a month before opening. Each of the four now has a room and a door of its own.

A wooden corridor with latticed glass doors on one side casting a long grid of sunlight across bare plank floorboards, paper screens and tatami on the other — Plate 06

The landing, four in the afternoon

The stairs come up into this. Guests wait here rather than at a desk.

A dim room seen head on, with a wall of glowing white paper screens, two lower panels open onto a sunlit wall, and a cylindrical paper lantern above — Plate 07

Room one, lights down

A wall of paper screens onto the alley. There is nothing else on the walls, and this is deliberate.

A tall speckled off-white stoneware bottle and two small tea bowls with unglazed rims, on a white surface against a plain grey wall — Plate 08

Hojicha, before and after

Speckled stoneware from a maker in Highland Park. Nothing here is branded and nothing is for sale.

A stack of folded pale grey-blue cotton towels on a white surface in soft diffused light — Plate 09

House towels

Cotton, steamed in the room rather than wheeled in from a cart, and changed as each one cools.

Black and white photograph of soft steam drifting across a dark frame, lit from behind by a single bar of light — Plate 10

Steam, room two

The towel sequence: three towels over the eyes, the jaw and the back of the neck.

From the guest book

“I grew up going to head spas in Japan and had given up finding a real one here. This is a real one. Same basin depth, same water temperature, same unhurried pace. Parking behind the building is a small miracle for Sawtelle.”

Hana K. · Yelp · 2 months ago

Fifteen minutes

The room is quieter than the photographs

Fifteen minutes, no charge, no obligation: come up, see a room, ask what you like, and decide afterwards.

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