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Gordon & Grant
Hot Tubs

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1. Redwood, Hot Water, And You: A Perfect Mixture

2. The Cooper's Art

3. The Recreational Vehicle That Stays at Home, Is Easy On The Gas, And Can Be Used Year-Around

Gordon & Grant
Redwood Hot Tubs

Redwood, Hot Water,
And You:
A Perfect Mixture

106 degrees seems too hot at first. You have to ease your way in, and your breath comes in short hisses. Gradually, you become accustomed to the temperature. You feel the heat penetrating through your body and d blissful calm seeps through you, a soul-deep relaxation. You find yourself feeling... happy, an elusive feeling that may take you a while to identify. And you find yourself enjoying easy, tensionless conversation with the others in the tub...

A Gordon & Grant redwood hot tub is something warm and friendly for the whole family to come home to. Hot tubs are warmth, first and foremost, and the cold truth is that warmth is hard to find these days. The warm and comfortable companionship of a hot tub is a new and increasingly popular way of breaking down the artificial barriers that modern society drives between us.

The hot tub began here in Santa Barbara a couple of decades ago when people making the long trip to the hot springs in the mountains noticed abandoned water storage tanks and discarded wine barrels. They brought these home, fitted them with heaters and pumps, and the hot-tubbing story began. The "natural" supply of tubs was soon gone; Gary Gordon and Richard Grant, experienced coopers (barrelmakers), made a few tanks for friends and soon were known as the makers of the best and most reliable tanks available. The basis of this reliability is redwood.

In the redwood forests of the Pacific Northwest, trees that fell hundreds of years ago can be found today still intact, seemingly impervious to time. The source of this longevity is the thick black sap that oozes from the surface of redwood at points of injury or wear. Each individual cell in the wood contains its own drop of this sap and gives it up only reluctantly, at moments of stress. The sap migrates to the surface and forms a protective coating that discourages insects and resists decay and rot.

Used in a hot tub, redwood swells with water and becomes soft and luxurious to the touch. Not just any old cut of redwood is suitable in a hot tub, though. Knots, for example, are strictly forbidden, so only all clear-heart wood is used. And wood with varying moisture content will age differently, causing potential warping problems, so Gordon and Grant use only kiln dried wood. Most important of all is the grain of the wood. The dark and light portions of the grain absorb water at different rates, and expand at correspondingly different rates. Gordon and Grant use only vertical grain redwood, even though it is sometimes hard to find. When vertical grain wood expands and swells with water, the grain compacts itself together. Flat grain, however, expands out into the water, where it inevitably begins to peel, shred, chip and splinter. This isn't too pleasant on bare skin. So Gordon & Grant never use flat-cut redwood. So you never get splintered.