Weekend Escape: Avila Beach : Getting Soaked : At Sycamore Mineral Springs Every Room Has a Hot Tub, but It’s the Hillside Spas That Make Even Seasoned Bathers Weak in the Knees

Living in the rude metropolitan embrace of Los Angeles has its negative side effects, among which torture by physical stress strikes me as the most immediate. It’s rather similar to the prolonged experience I had until not too long ago living in the urban vice-grips of Tokyo. One of the secrets to my survival and sanity in that inhumanely congested Asian capital was finding the time to get to a good hot springs resort frequently enough to salvage my body and soul from their knotted conditions. So it is that I have been on a quest for good California spas since reluctantly taking up residence in the City of Wired and Wigged-out Angels.

Reasonable weekend motoring distance is a requirement, which rules out the nirvana of Tassajara Hot Springs, 14 miles down a steep dirt road outside of Carmel. The allure of that Buddhist monastery cum Zen dude ranch is fantastic food, a great bathhouse and Spartan atmospherics.

But even remote Tassajara doesn’t provide the ultimate in classic Japanese hot springs bathing: the outdoors rotemburo --literally the bath of the dew and heavens.

That’s why I like Sycamore Mineral Springs resort, near Avila Beach on the road from San Luis Obispo, which offers a hybrid alternative, blending California traditions with the spiritual essence of the rotemburo . The modern incarnation of this historic spa, which first opened in 1897, has 23 redwood tubs scattered in a hillside forest of live oak and sycamore trees.

The tubs are fed by two artesian wells spouting hot sulfur water, first discovered by wildcat oil men in the 1890s. In the late 1920s, the springs were popular with the Hollywood elite who stopped off on their way to elegant mooching at Hearst Castle, about an hour’s drive to the north.

My wife and I serendipitously ran across the place two years ago. We were looking for a motel for the night and strayed off the U.S. 101 freeway toward Avila Beach. Recently we returned with our 3-month-old daughter to soak off the compounded tensions of urban life and parenthood.

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It’s a long drive from Los Angeles, but not really a challenging one. Traffic allowing, you can reach the Avila Beach turn-off in about 3 1/2 hours. The hillside baths are open all night, so there’s no rush to get there if you’re lucky enough to get a Friday night reservation, and an immediate soothing reward is waiting on arrival.

We recently took some vacation time and drove up at a leisurely pace on a sunny weekday, traveling the coastal route on California 1, stopping to feed and change Sonya Alexandra, our infant chore machine, and to pursue other distractions. In Summerland we detoured to watch--in wonderment--a practice match on the lush green lawns of the Santa Barbara Polo Club. Sonya scrutinized her first pony snout at close range, and didn’t cry.

We checked in at Sycamore Mineral Springs in mid-afternoon, slightly confused by the presence of a large lodge-like building that wasn’t there on our previous visit. It turned out to be a new restaurant, the Gardens of Avila, which, we were later to learn, offers an ambitious menu. A mellow front desk attendant gave us our room key and we climbed up the stairway to our motel unit and immediately started to fill the hot tub on the balcony. That’s another nice part of staying at Sycamore--you have a choice between soaking in privacy in the fiberglass tub attached to your room, or plunging into the redwood tubs on the hill, which are not entirely secluded.

The water is the same: hot and slightly stinky with sulfur, but not offensively so. The malodorousness adds to the authenticity of the experience.

To get the desired curative effect of a hot springs visit, it’s necessary to spend a lot of time in a tub. This is not a brisk bath we’re talking about. Unless you have a heart condition or some other serious ailment, the point is to spend hours in the water, until your tight muscles slacken into a rubbery gell. That’s another reason to take advantage of the tub on your balcony. It’s free, while the Sycamore management charges by the hour for the hillside rotemburo --an unfortunate concession to making profit for the resort. Day-users compete for those tubs, and it costs $10 an hour (half price for motel guests during slow periods) to use them.

We took advantage of our balcony tub to give Sonya her first real bath, figuring the fiberglass would be easier to clean in the likely event we were presented with dreaded baby poop. She has had her share of happy bird baths in the kitchen sink, but we were astounded at how delighted she was to be submerged for the first time up to the milk-scum deposits in the folds of her neck. Naturally, we cooled the water down before subjecting her to this experiment in hygiene. After three months of seeing my daughter dressed up like a frilly baby doll in her outlandish girly outfits (no offense to my relatives), it was a great joy to see her in her natural naked state, exposed but warmed by the water and grinning her toothless grin as Susan and I passed her back and forth.

Later our attention shifted from Romper Room to serious dining. We found the Gardens of Avila restaurant surprisingly good. Chef Michael Albright was perhaps a little too assertive with his sauces on at least two of the dishes we sampled--gooey firecracker chicken potstickers, which I found mild, and halibut encrusted with a sclerotic coating of pesto and bread crumbs. But the rest of the meal was excellent; there was good Chardonnay on the menu and a very pleasant ambience to drink it in.

In fact, the split-level restaurant, with easy access from the basement dining room to a garden carved into the hillside, made for an interesting circuit for my dinner-time rounds with baby Sonya drooling on my shoulder. Despite her relaxing bath, she went into her usual routine of howling inconsolably just as her parents sat down to a nice meal, demanding that we eat in shifts. My theory is that linen napkins and candlelight sets her off. But none of our fellow sulfur-soaked diners sneered at us, which is always a relief.

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Our next problem was what to do about massage. The resort offers serious therapeutic massages, ranging from $35 for a half-hour neck and shoulder rub to $75 for a 90-minute “premier” session. On our previous visit we each indulged in the $50 one-hour compromise, but as parsimonious new parents, we let vague feelings of guilt deter us from spending the money.

The reward for our steadfastness came late in the evening, when Sonya was at last sound asleep in her portable car seat. We booked an hour in a redwood tub on the hill called “Rendezvous.” The tub names are the one corny touch in an otherwise tasteful resort: Paradise, Harmony, Enchantment and Shangrila. But I suppose it’s better than giving them numbers. The soak in Rendezvous, hot and steamy in the chilly night air, was about as close to perfection as a rotemburo is supposed to be. Sonya slept peacefully in her seat on the redwood deck. If I wasn’t blind as a mole and my glasses hadn’t fogged up, I would have been able to lean back and gaze contemplatively at patches of stars through the canopy of oak trees. The bath had heavens and dew, or at least mist.

Next morning, I woke up feeling about 30 pounds heavier as I tried to move my body, relaxed to the point of soreness. The remedy was a good soak in the tub on the balcony before breakfast. It’s important to remember to bathe at every opportunity. Don’t worry about it if your restless spouse would rather take a nature walk in the woods or drive down to the beach. The point of the trip is to bathe. And the cool-down periods in the motel room can be very pleasant.

Sycamore Mineral Springs has one major drawback--it’s a difficult place to go on a spontaneous whim, or when the stress builds to emergency levels. In that respect, it has a lot in common with the best onsen (hot springs) resorts in Japan, where lodging and train reservations require a great deal of planning. In the peak summer season, weekend reservations for Sycamore have to be made about 14 weeks in advance. Fall and winter are the off-seasons, which is ludicrous because they’re the best seasons for outdoor bathing, but it’s still advisable to make reservations six weeks ahead of time.

The resort is now offering “fall getaway specials” (Sunday through Thursday only) through Dec. 11, which actually don’t save you that much money by our calculations. But that’s because regular rates are reasonable to begin with: Motel rooms comfortable for two people (or two and a baby) are from $104 a night weekdays ($114 weekends), tax not included. The place is kid-friendly with a big swimming pool, heated but not with mineral water, and it has a delightful flower garden with a classic gazebo. It’s a great cure for nervous families from the city.

Budget for Two

Gas from Los Angeles: $ 23

One night at Sycamore Mineral Springs: 117

Hour-long soaks in outdoor tub: 10

Dinner with wine at Gardens of Avila: 39

Lunch, deli sandwiches from town: 9

FINAL TAB: $198

Sycamore Mineral Springs, 1215 Avila Beach Drive, San Luis Obispo, 93405; telephone (805) 595-7302, reservations (800) 234-5831.