Bathhouses at Homestead to reopen soon

A painstaking restoration of the Warm Springs Pools will wrap up in time for The Omni Homestead Resort in Bath County to reopen one of America’s oldest spas by 2022’s end.

Formerly called the Jefferson Pools, the spring-fed public baths have been closed since 2017. The resort had hoped to start work on the $3 million project in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic induced a hospitality industry shutdown that delayed construction to September 2021.

The historic property includes two wooden bathhouses — the octagonal Gentlemen’s Bath House, built in the 1820s, and the larger, circular Ladies’ Bath House, built in the 1870s. Both structures surround bubbling pools of warm water and are open to the sky.

Omni engaged Richmond-based architectural firm 3North and Roanoke-based general contractor Lionberger Construction to lead the project.

After sitting for months in a pandemic-shuttered world, the all-wood buildings were in worse condition than the team anticipated when work began, according to Ed Pillsbury, architect and principal at 3North. “We saw significant deterioration during that time as the roof started to fail,” Pillsbury says.

Pillsbury says the bathhouses’ 200-year history has been a constant cycle of repair, as steam and the elements have taken their toll.

“People have been fixing these up every 20 years for the last 200 years, and this is another cycle of that,” he says.

Much of the unexpected deterioration the team found was in areas where more recent repairs had been made, meaning that some of the structure’s timbers that date as far back as the 1820s were salvageable, Pillsbury says.

Over the years, repairs have introduced new architectural features, and in the current restoration, 3North and Lionberger will restore the baths to their appearance in 1925, which the Virginia Landmarks Register recognizes as the end of their most active era as a thermal water resort.

This means restoring the domed roof on the ladies’ bath, which will be a marked change from the way it has looked since the 1950s.

Lynn Swann, the Homestead’s director of marketing and communications, says the resort hasn’t yet finalized hours of operation, but the pools will be open later this year to both resort guests and the general public.

“We are all very excited to be able to reopen the pools,” she says. “If it weren’t for these natural springs, the Homestead wouldn’t be here.”