Banya is a culture, not a treatment.
Where the banya and the sauna were born, the bathhouse is not a luxury. It is a public room with heat at its centre: where a town meets, where a hard week is sweated out, and where people leave lighter, warmer and kinder than they arrived.
That is what we want to build in Bright — a true public bathhouse, run by people who grew up in this culture, to the standard of the best in the world: a place of heat, water, cold and rest that locals can afford every week and visitors will cross the country for. The Log Banya in Mount Beauty is our proof that it works here; the bigger dream gives it a proper home.
Our story so far →It would be easier near a city. It would not be the same.
We know. An hour from Melbourne there would be five million people on the doorstep, infrastructure at the kerb and demand that barely notices the seasons. Building in a small alpine town is harder, slower and more expensive. We chose it anyway.
Banya belongs where the air is cold and the water is clean. In Bright the river runs off the mountains, snow sits on the ridges, autumn turns the town gold, and people come to walk, ride, swim and slow down. A bathhouse is the missing piece: the place you go after the mountain. The setting is here already; the infrastructure and engineering are the work we have been doing since the day we bought the land.
The mountains do the healing. We only add the heat, the water and a bench to sit on.
Heat, water, cold, rest — and a place to stay.
The concept design brings the whole banya ritual together on one site: steam rooms heated by real fire, warm pools and a hot spa, cold plunges and the cold mountain air itself, quiet rooms to rest between rounds, a kitchen for the food that belongs after the steam, and small cabins among the trees for those who want to stay the night. Everything is low, wooden and tucked into the landscape, because the landscape is the point.
The images are concept renders. The final design will change through the planning process and in conversation with the community, Council and the agencies involved — but this is the spirit of it.
Stone, timber and fire. Rooms built for the steam master's work, and for doing nothing at all afterwards.
Walk through the concept.
Ninety seconds over the site as it could be — from the road, across the pools and the steam house, to the cabins by the water.
Good for the town, not only for the people in the steam.
A bathhouse works in any weather. When it is cold, there is nowhere better to warm up; when it is hot, the steam cleanses and the ice baths give the contrast that leaves you refreshed. It is the ideal plan for the days the weather does not cooperate, it is at its best midweek, and it fills the shoulder seasons when Bright is quietest.
Steam masters, pool and plant technicians, cooks, hosts, gardeners and maintenance trades: year-round work that is learned on the job and cannot be moved offshore. Construction brings its own years of local work first.
Off-peak sessions and memberships priced for people who live here, so the bathhouse is part of ordinary life in the Alpine Shire, not only a treat for visitors. That is what a public bathhouse means.
A banya complex of this kind does not yet exist in Australia. Built to an international standard, it would draw wellness events, sauna culture gatherings and media to the High Country.
The State wants exactly this kind of place built in regional Victoria.
Wellness tourism is one of the Victorian Government's stated priorities for the visitor economy, and the policy documents are explicit about wanting world-class wellness experiences in the regions. The Banya Place is a privately funded project that delivers on that policy in a small alpine town.
The State's ten-year tourism strategy names wellness as one of five product priorities, and aims to grow visitor spending toward a projected $58 billion by 2033. It also admits that Victoria's wellness industry currently serves only a small part of the available market.
Read the strategy →In April 2026 the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions called wellness “one of Victoria's highest-value visitor segments”, noted that it creates jobs in regional areas, and said the State is “investing in wellness tourism to create world-class experiences”.
Read the article →Launched by the Minister for Tourism in August 2025, “from concept to reality” is the Victorian Government's own handbook for planning and building a wellness business — the path we are on.
Read the announcement →We would rather tell you the difficulties than pretend there are none.
Anyone who tells you a project like this is simple has not tried it. These are the three things that keep us up at night, and what we are doing about each.
Bright has town water and sewer, but North East Water's capacity here is currently very limited, and a bathhouse uses and returns a lot of water. We are working with North East Water, and at the same time planning a staged approach: possibly a reduced first stage with an on-site water treatment system, to get us off the ground while their systems are upgraded. All options are on the table.
The site sits in a bushfire overlay beside a pine plantation. Every building must meet strict setbacks and construction standards, and the Country Fire Authority has a say in the design. That is right, and it adds real cost and time: specialist consultants, fire-resistant construction, managed vegetation and emergency planning.
Tourism in the Alps rises and falls with the seasons, the weather, the roads and the economy. We are designing for that: a bathhouse that locals use all year, memberships, events, and cabins that pay their way — not a business that only works on long weekends.
Where the project stands.
A dated record of what has been done, what is happening now and what comes next. We will keep it current.
- Nov 2025Land secured
We bought the land on the edge of Bright where the bathhouse will stand: an old building put up by a religious cult, with the river below and the pines behind, which we will turn into a place for people's health and wellbeing.
- Feb 2026Water and wastewater design begins
Engineers engaged to design on-site water and wastewater treatment — an option we are keeping open so the project can go live while North East Water upgrades its systems in the years ahead.
- Apr 2026Flora and Fauna Assessment completed
An ecologist surveyed the site so that the design protects what lives there.
- May 2026Bushfire consultants engaged
Terramatrix engaged to prepare the Bushfire Management Statement the site's bushfire overlay requires.
- May 2026Working with the neighbours
HVP Plantations declined our request to build a children's playground and rope park on the garden site we lease from them, so we asked instead for a managed firebreak along the northern boundary. That conversation continues.
- May 2026Tourism North East offers its support
The region's tourism body saw the concept and offered to help.
- Jun 2026Concept design completed
The architectural concept on this page: a bathhouse, pools, gardens and cabins arranged around the trees.
- Oct 2026Wastewater system redesigned
The first wastewater design did not meet the standard required, so new specialist engineers were engaged to redesign the system for the whole facility.
- NextPlanning application
Lodging the application with the complete bushfire, water, ecology and traffic work — and talking with the Bright community along the way.
- ThenDetailed design, a staged build, and the first steam
The bathhouse first, cabins and gardens following, so that Bright gets its public banya as early as we can safely open it.
If you want this to exist, say so.
When we go to Council and the State we want to show them the people behind the idea — locals, visitors, businesses, families. Every name here is evidence that the region wants its bathhouse. Comments you allow us to publish appear below once we have read them.
We would like to talk.
If you are reading this from Alpine Shire Council, a Victorian Government department or agency, the Country Fire Authority, Tourism North East or an organisation that could partner with us: we have more to show than fits on a web page. The full architectural concept, the ecology, bushfire and water work completed so far, the business case and the staging plan are all available on request.
We are a family business with a working banya in Mount Beauty, members of the Australian Sauna Association and delegates to the 2026 International Sauna Congress. Come and sit in the steam with us — it explains the project better than any document.
Banya is a culture, not a treatment.
Where the banya and the sauna were born, the bathhouse is not a luxury. It is a public room with heat at its centre: where a town meets, where a hard week is sweated out, and where people leave lighter, warmer and kinder than they arrived.
That is what we want to build in Bright — a true public bathhouse, run by people who grew up in this culture, to the standard of the best in the world: a place of heat, water, cold and rest that locals can afford every week and visitors will cross the country for. The Log Banya in Mount Beauty is our proof that it works here; the bigger dream gives it a proper home.
Our story so far →It would be easier near a city. It would not be the same.
We know. An hour from Melbourne there would be five million people on the doorstep, infrastructure at the kerb and demand that barely notices the seasons. Building in a small alpine town is harder, slower and more expensive. We chose it anyway.
Banya belongs where the air is cold and the water is clean. In Bright the river runs off the mountains, snow sits on the ridges, autumn turns the town gold, and people come to walk, ride, swim and slow down. A bathhouse is the missing piece: the place you go after the mountain. The setting is here already; the infrastructure and engineering are the work we have been doing since the day we bought the land.
The mountains do the healing. We only add the heat, the water and a bench to sit on.
Heat, water, cold, rest — and a place to stay.
The concept design brings the whole banya ritual together on one site: steam rooms heated by real fire, warm pools and a hot spa, cold plunges and the cold mountain air itself, quiet rooms to rest between rounds, a kitchen for the food that belongs after the steam, and small cabins among the trees for those who want to stay the night. Everything is low, wooden and tucked into the landscape, because the landscape is the point.
The images are concept renders. The final design will change through the planning process and in conversation with the community, Council and the agencies involved — but this is the spirit of it.
Stone, timber and fire. Rooms built for the steam master's work, and for doing nothing at all afterwards.
Walk through the concept.
Ninety seconds over the site as it could be — from the road, across the pools and the steam house, to the cabins by the water.
Good for the town, not only for the people in the steam.
A bathhouse works in any weather. When it is cold, there is nowhere better to warm up; when it is hot, the steam cleanses and the ice baths give the contrast that leaves you refreshed. It is the ideal plan for the days the weather does not cooperate, it is at its best midweek, and it fills the shoulder seasons when Bright is quietest.
Steam masters, pool and plant technicians, cooks, hosts, gardeners and maintenance trades: year-round work that is learned on the job and cannot be moved offshore. Construction brings its own years of local work first.
Off-peak sessions and memberships priced for people who live here, so the bathhouse is part of ordinary life in the Alpine Shire, not only a treat for visitors. That is what a public bathhouse means.
A banya complex of this kind does not yet exist in Australia. Built to an international standard, it would draw wellness events, sauna culture gatherings and media to the High Country.
The State wants exactly this kind of place built in regional Victoria.
Wellness tourism is one of the Victorian Government's stated priorities for the visitor economy, and the policy documents are explicit about wanting world-class wellness experiences in the regions. The Banya Place is a privately funded project that delivers on that policy in a small alpine town.
The State's ten-year tourism strategy names wellness as one of five product priorities, and aims to grow visitor spending toward a projected $58 billion by 2033. It also admits that Victoria's wellness industry currently serves only a small part of the available market.
Read the strategy →In April 2026 the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions called wellness “one of Victoria's highest-value visitor segments”, noted that it creates jobs in regional areas, and said the State is “investing in wellness tourism to create world-class experiences”.
Read the article →Launched by the Minister for Tourism in August 2025, “from concept to reality” is the Victorian Government's own handbook for planning and building a wellness business — the path we are on.
Read the announcement →We would rather tell you the difficulties than pretend there are none.
Anyone who tells you a project like this is simple has not tried it. These are the three things that keep us up at night, and what we are doing about each.
Bright has town water and sewer, but North East Water's capacity here is currently very limited, and a bathhouse uses and returns a lot of water. We are working with North East Water, and at the same time planning a staged approach: possibly a reduced first stage with an on-site water treatment system, to get us off the ground while their systems are upgraded. All options are on the table.
The site sits in a bushfire overlay beside a pine plantation. Every building must meet strict setbacks and construction standards, and the Country Fire Authority has a say in the design. That is right, and it adds real cost and time: specialist consultants, fire-resistant construction, managed vegetation and emergency planning.
Tourism in the Alps rises and falls with the seasons, the weather, the roads and the economy. We are designing for that: a bathhouse that locals use all year, memberships, events, and cabins that pay their way — not a business that only works on long weekends.
Where the project stands.
A dated record of what has been done, what is happening now and what comes next. We will keep it current.
- Nov 2025Land secured
We bought the land on the edge of Bright where the bathhouse will stand: an old building put up by a religious cult, with the river below and the pines behind, which we will turn into a place for people's health and wellbeing.
- Feb 2026Water and wastewater design begins
Engineers engaged to design on-site water and wastewater treatment — an option we are keeping open so the project can go live while North East Water upgrades its systems in the years ahead.
- Apr 2026Flora and Fauna Assessment completed
An ecologist surveyed the site so that the design protects what lives there.
- May 2026Bushfire consultants engaged
Terramatrix engaged to prepare the Bushfire Management Statement the site's bushfire overlay requires.
- May 2026Working with the neighbours
HVP Plantations declined our request to build a children's playground and rope park on the garden site we lease from them, so we asked instead for a managed firebreak along the northern boundary. That conversation continues.
- May 2026Tourism North East offers its support
The region's tourism body saw the concept and offered to help.
- Jun 2026Concept design completed
The architectural concept on this page: a bathhouse, pools, gardens and cabins arranged around the trees.
- Oct 2026Wastewater system redesigned
The first wastewater design did not meet the standard required, so new specialist engineers were engaged to redesign the system for the whole facility.
- NextPlanning application
Lodging the application with the complete bushfire, water, ecology and traffic work — and talking with the Bright community along the way.
- ThenDetailed design, a staged build, and the first steam
The bathhouse first, cabins and gardens following, so that Bright gets its public banya as early as we can safely open it.
If you want this to exist, say so.
When we go to Council and the State we want to show them the people behind the idea — locals, visitors, businesses, families. Every name here is evidence that the region wants its bathhouse. Comments you allow us to publish appear below once we have read them.
We would like to talk.
If you are reading this from Alpine Shire Council, a Victorian Government department or agency, the Country Fire Authority, Tourism North East or an organisation that could partner with us: we have more to show than fits on a web page. The full architectural concept, the ecology, bushfire and water work completed so far, the business case and the staging plan are all available on request.
We are a family business with a working banya in Mount Beauty, members of the Australian Sauna Association and delegates to the 2026 International Sauna Congress. Come and sit in the steam with us — it explains the project better than any document.