Quapaw Baths adds 2nd choice to park city spas
Posted on Saturday, July 19, 2008
HOT SPRINGS — For the first time in nearly 23 years, a bathhouse opened Wednesday on Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs National Park.
The newly rehabilitated Quapaw Baths and Spa joins the Buckstaff Bath House as the only bathhouses open for bathing on the row — Central Avenue — since the Lamar Bath House closed its doors.
Quapaw Baths LLC, which is rehabilitating the 86-yearold Quapaw Bath House under a 55-year lease with the National Park Service, had a “soft opening” Wednesday.
The Quapaw will offer a new way to soak in Hot Springs’ famed thermal waters — through dips in a communal bathing area — instead if individual tubs.
It also will offer massages and facials, as well as a gift shop.
Other areas, such as a semiprivate bathing area and a snack bar, are still under construction.
Don Harper, one of the partners in Quapaw Baths LLC, said the public could start calling for appointments, but “we’re also doing some walk-ins, as well.” The purpose of the “soft opening” is to “gear up gradually,” so that the Quapaw can provide a “high consistency” of service, Harper said.
“Some businesses just open the doors and they get a flood of people, and service is not everything that it needs to be,” he said.
Harper said the Quapaw wants to avoid lines and “people becoming frustrated because they can’t get the service they want when they anticipated getting it and all that sort of thing.” Quapaw Baths LLC has been working on the rehabilitation project since last September, demolishing the former tub bathing area on the first floor and rehabilitating it into a modern-day communal bathing area with common pools and waterfalls filled with thermal water from the national park.
The thermal waters, which originate from Hot Springs Mountain just to the north of the bathhouse, will not be chemically treated and will be disinfected only through ozonization.
The communal area features three thermal pool modules at floor level and one upper-tier pool that runs the length of the room.
The maximum depth is four feet, with benches line the perimeter of each pool.
On the second floor, patrons will have a choice of Swedish, hot stone or deep-tissue massages, couples massages and facials, including the “Quapaw Signature Facial.” Upgrades including eye and lip treatments can be added to the facials.
The Quapaw, which was built in 1922 and operated for a time as Health Services Inc., closed in 1984, along with the Superior Bath House.
The Buckstaff is the only bathhouse on the Bathhouse Row that has stayed in continuous operation, since 1912.
The Quapaw bathhouse, (501 ) 609-9822, will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays.
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