The Hottest New Home Amenity? ‘It’s Brutal.’

Most mornings after Stephen Garten wakes up at his home in Austin, he goes into his backyard and starts pacing, preparing himself for what’s next. “It’s like being in a river,” he says of the flow rate produced by this particular vessel, a Blue Cube cold plunge. “Our cold plunge projects have increased ten times since then,” says Mitch Martinek, the company’s design manager. “You start investing in protocols to help you be healthy.” While many cold plungers have developed their own ice bathing rituals, choosing everything from their preferred water temperatures to time limits, Dr. Susanna Søberg, a Danish PhD metabolic scientist and founder of the Soeberg Institute, is one of the world’s experts on the health benefits of cold immersion, which she has been studying for nine years. The company’s co-founder and CEO Allison Messner says wellness yards—encompassing everything from cold plunges to saunas to meditation spaces to forest bathing—is one of Yardzen’s top 2023 trends.