THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601270033
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR
LENGTH: Long : 329 lines
THIS IS A GUY THING. You women can keep on reading if you wish, but this is going to involve me taking off my clothes and sweating and stuff like that.
After extensive if not exhaustive research in two different locations in Florida (and more than a half century of being a guy), I have determined that going to a spa is very much a guy thing. I'll take it over golf every time.
You can take it at several different levels. If you want fitness, spas are ready to tailor an exercise program for you. If you want wellness, they can combine exercise with proper diet.
I like the ``Three Rs'' of Spa-ing: Relax, Refresh, Rejuvenate. I like to take my wellness lying down. I find it very therapeutic. The therapy is as much indirect as direct, facilitated by the environment of the spa. After I tell you about Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami and Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa near Fort Myers, you'll understand why.
But first this.
Let's dispel the notion once and for all that real men don't go to spas. That's wrong. That's like saying real men don't eat quiche. Men don't eat quiche because it doesn't taste very good.
Men don't go to spas - I'm going to have to be tough about this - because they don't know what spas are all about. And they are not ABOUT to ask. Guys do not like to ask any question that might indicate they don't have a clue.
Spa terminology can be a bit puzzling, I'll admit. But no more so than ``pick and roll'' or ``bogey.''
I did not know exactly what to expect before I had an aromatherapy massage. I will tell you now that it is NOT like that flower-wrapped deal Lady Chatterly's lover got, and I did NOT come away smelling like some perfumed poof; I will tell you what it was like in a minute.
What's a glycolic facial or an algae paraffin facial? What's a mango salt glo?
Well, a facial is like washing your face and getting it REALLY CLEAN. So clean it glows. A clean face isn't so bad, is it? A mango salt glo is the same thing over your whole body. They just use different stuff to clean the skin, so that's why there are different names.
And the fact is, guys have been going to spas for a long time. Egyptians did, Greeks did. Roman guys loved spas.
Besides being great conquerors, the Romans were great engineers and great geologists. Everywhere they went they built straight roads, straight to geothermal springs, and before you knew it they had an empire stretching all the way from Bath, England, (and beyond) to Turkey.
The Romans allowed their conquered people to pretty much live their own lives with this caveat: ``As long as you give me a back rub.''
This is what I found spas to be like: NEW BEGINNING
IT IS HIGH NOON on the first day of the rest of my life - the new Wellness Years.
I have decided to become very serious about wellness. Not long ago I heard a guy on television, advertising some sort of exercise contraption, say something like, ``After my heart attack I began. . . .'' And I said to myself, ``That's what I'll do, too. After I have a heart attack, I KNOW I'll get really serious about exercise.''
Then I began wondering: What if that first one is The Big One?
After years of mostly benign neglect my body needs some serious attention.
So here I am at Doral Golf Resort and Spa, where they claim to ``make the road to physical and spiritual well-being a rewarding and pleasurable one.'' I've never been a big fan of the ``no pain, no gain'' approach. ``Pleasurable'' is a very important word to me.
Doral is a short drive northwest of Miami International Airport, sprawling over 650 lush acres that were, when the resort was built in 1961, on the edge of the Everglades. It is best known for its golf facilities. Its Blue Monster course is the site of the Doral Ryder Open, the first Florida stop on the PGA Tour, and its teaching facilities are renowned.
The Spa at Doral is the big leagues as well. The obsequious Robin Leach called it America's most luxurious spa as far back as 1987. In 1995 rankings of U.S. facilities the Zagat Survey rates it No. 2 and the Conde Nast Traveler reader's poll lists it No. 5.
Adjacent to the golf resort complex, the spa is a South Florida interpretation of a Tuscan villa that includes its own healthy-cuisine restaurant; it is surrounded by formal gardens, splashing fountains, statuary in the classical style and its own outdoor pool complete with hot and cold running waterfalls.
And, to support my contention at spa-ing can be a guy thing too, Doral president Joel Paige points out that in the past year there has been a 20 percent increase in male guests at the spa. Its ratio is now 41-59 men to women.
Part of this increase is due to the fact that the spa is offering a wider variety of services for men as well as inclusive packages cross-selling spa services with golf packages. But, Paige says, he has noticed a big difference in the way men perceive spa service.
``Men no longer view spas as simply a social getaway spot for women,'' he says. ``We're not just about beauty and grooming. We also serve to educate our guests on a healthy diet, to offer techniques for overcoming stress and to encourage our guests to participate in an exercise routine by offering an extensive range of fitness and exercise programs.''
Just what I need.
But wouldn't you know it. Even with the best of intentions, I've already had a cholesterol accident. It often happens when I travel, which is often. I was innocently walking through the breakfast buffet, past the eggs and bacon and sausage, and I had what must have been a blackout. When I got back to the table, there was all that stuff piled on my plate. I had to eat it.
Now I feel remorse, guilt. I am contrite. I must make amends. I must get serious. I think of The Big One. That does it.
I attend a nutritional discussion by the spa's Chef de Cuisine, Chef Kyle. She is a former fashion model who has a B.A. in Japanese art history and language. She lived in Asia for seven years and came to think of meat as a condiment. She believes in a diet high in carbohydrates, low in protein.
``Fruit and vegetables, fruit and vegetables,'' she says. ``That's what it's all about.''
She says her breakfast is a yogurt shake. That's it, just a shake. The recipe: plain yogurt, skim milk, one banana, six to eight strawberries, honey, vanilla extract and ice cubes for froth.
I think of MY breakfast. Chef Kyle and I are about as far apart as Asia and America. But I want to narrow the gap.
For lunch, I have lentil soup, fresh fruit and sorbet.
Afterward, I am given a thorough wellness evaluation on which I scored only ``Fair'' - that is not good, it is not even average - and a customized take-home program of exercises that, if I follow it, might help me avoid The Big One. When I get home I must try to remember where I parked my exercise bike.
Now fully into the spa thing, I have a wonderfully relaxing, hourlong Swedish massage (by Rebecca of Venezuela), followed by a European facial (by Marie of Colombia), both in a darkened room accompanied by taped piano concertos.
Later I have an aromatherapy scalp massage. I am lying here relaxing and trying to isolate that fragrance. I think it is. . . what? OREGANO! I am almost certain it is oregano. I began to think pizza . . . cheese . . . pepperoni. This is not going to be easy.
Breakfast the following morning: granola and all-bran with blueberries and strawberries and skim milk, an anemic-looking but quite good five egg-white omelet with low-fat mozzarella cheese, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes and bottled water (my choice of Evian or San Pellagrino). Am I into wellness or what?
The only other people eating this early are four youngish women - I'm sure the guys will come in later - at an adjacent table who talk loudly about plastic surgery and hair washing. One announces that she has been accused of shoplifting, which she says is perfectly ridiculous.
Another calls to Umberto, a spa staffer, and says she wants to change her hair appointment so she can do the astrology thing.
Huh?
At dinner I learn that the spa has a resident astrologist.
She announces to all of us that Pluto has left Scorpio. I have not felt such finality in one's voice since I last heard someone announce, ``Elvis has left the building.''
She went on to say, as near as I could understand, that Pluto's move (to Sagittarius, I believe) would change everything, there would be a great shift in consciousness. I learned later that this indicated that those who were once staunchly orthodox would go shockingly heretical, while erstwhile heretics would ``see the light'' at last.
Well, of course. I, the health heretic, HAVE changed. There were no fireworks, no bells pealed. But, hey, the stars did move.
Doral detour: Doral is not the sort of place you leave without good reason, but Miami's South Beach (SoBe) is the sort of place that should be seen and experienced. It is so ``hot'' right now that it is the ultimate in South Florida cool.
SoBe is is a state of mind encompassed in a strip about 10 blocks long by three blocks wide. It is Miami's answer to the Riviera - sort of like Nice's Promenade des Anglies, but not quite. Its neon-lit architecture ranges from 1930s sherbet-shaded art deco facades to '50s concrete done up in tropical pastels: flamingo pink, seafoam green, sunny yellow.
It is incandescent and international, a fusion of racy, ritzy and rich, plus immigrants, seniors, Gen-X supermodels, drag queens and tourists. Music spills out into the streets that are a bumper-to-bumper mass of slow-cruising cars with 'bladers gliding in between. Everybody who is anybody or who is trying to be somebody is here.
There's conventional culture, too. The recently opened Wolfsonian Museum houses some 70,000 machine-age artifacts of mercurial millionaire Mitchell Wolfson Jr. - an eclectic hodgepodge ranging from matchbook covers to priceless artworks including rare Tiffany lamps and a prototype of Frank Lloyd Wright's three-legged chair. One SoBe maven said it ``opens up a whole new world of intellectual curiosity.''
The China Grill, where the prancing and preening are elbow to elbow, is an interesting SoBe dining experience. Service (as at its Manhattan twin) is family style, which means they bring a bunch of food in large portions and you dig in. My group of about a dozen shared:
Appetizers: Sake-cured salmon rolls with lemon grass vinaigrette, lamb dumplings with ginger mushroom sauce, stir-fried sesame citrus noodles with seasoned vegetables plus a green salad.
Entrees: Australian organic free-range lamb with a mandarin sauce, wasabi-crusted grouper on a citrus and potato pancake in a red-wine miso sauce, spice-rubbed pork loin with papaya and berry salsa, pan-seared spice tuna with avocado sashimi, grilled rosemary scallops with plum and goat cheese risotto, and a grilled 38-ounce porterhouse steak with roasted garlic, shallots and orange rosemary teriyaki sauce.
Accompaniments: crispy spinach, steamed vegetables, duck fried rice and wasabi mashed potatoes.
After that, you NEED a spa.
Instead, I went on a Caribbean cruise. You know about cruises. Sure, most ships have spas. But they also have food, food and more food. I fell off the exercise bike, so to speak. I lapsed. MANDATORY RECALL
I RETURNED home pretty much a pre-Doral mess, in desperate need of a tune-up. I headed for Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa. It's not as well-known as Doral, not currently on any ``top'' spa lists. But it is in Florida (near Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast) and this is January and - well, how much more incentive does one need?
Sanibel has been listed among the ``tops'' as a family beach resort by Family Circle magazine, and its 5,500-seat tennis stadium (once the Jimmy Connors Tennis Center) was the site of Davis Cup finals in 1989 and 1992.
The spa facilities are tucked under the stands of the stadium.
The octagonal pavilion and cupola that are the hallmark of the resort hark back to an era in southwest Florida history when wealthy sportsmen came to Tarpon House on this present site - people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who built winter homes in nearby Fort Myers.
Spa director Ann Emich tells me that the men-women ratio at Sanibel is about 65-35; she says it was about 80 percent women when she started in 1987.
``Men are starting to understand the prevention approach to keeping yourself healthy,'' she says.
``Sometimes men come in to to work out or to play racquetball and we get them interested in other services. Facials are another area where I'm able to get men involved.
``I go to speak to groups of men who are having meetings at the hotel. I ask them how many of them get professional treatment for their teeth. Of course they all hold up their hands.
``Then I ask how many get professional treatment for their skin, their first line of defense. Most of them are listening to reason by then, and some do try a facial.''
Here at Sanibel I have decided that rather than run through the whole gamut of spa services - like, for instance, exercise and all that nutritional stuff - I will concentrate on stress relief, which I can do in a reclining position.
Like you, I have a lot of stress in my life.
First comes an aromatherapy massage. Mike, who is from Iowa and who has studied for 500 hours and passed a rigid state exam to do this sort of work, tells me that ``Men carry around a lot of stress. Many of them don't know how to get rid of it.''
This is one great way. Mike recommends a blend of essential oils that I will both smell and have massaged into my body for an hour while I listen to music. Eucalyptus, wintergreen and lemon are good for stress.
I ask Mike what most men say when they come to him the first time.
``My wife made me.''
And after aromatherapy?
``Most of them say, `I might do this again.' ''
Next I have an herbal sports wrap, which is sort of like being wrapped in tea bags. Actually regular cotton sheets are soaked in large stainless steel kettles containing a steaming brew of chamomile, spearmint and orange peels - something you could actually drink as herbal tea - and then wrapped carefully over the body.
This is an ancient treatment. The hot, fragrant herbs help increase perspiration and help rid the body of toxins and impurities.
Now, semi-purified and possibly less toxic, I am physically and spiritually ready for what I have been led to believe is The Ultimate Spa Experience: The BETAR bed.
I am told that there are only 18 of these $50,000 apparatuses and all except the one at Sanibel are in clinical situations for the study of relaxation and sleep.
But this New Age contraption seems, to someone approaching old age, to be, well, sort of goofy. So goofy, I'd bet Michael Jackson has one of the other 17.
BETAR is techno-shorthand for Bio-Energetic Transduction-Aided Resonance.
The bed sits near the center of a room with walls covered in mirrors so that it seems infinitely bigger than it really is. Aromatherapy also is at work here, but I cannot identify the fragrance.
The bed is suspended by chains from the bars of a geodesic dome. I look for a sign that says ``Buckminster Fuller slept here.'' Instead a see an elaborate surround-sound system of speakers all connected to a large console packed with lights and dials.
I get in the swaying bed, the lights dim and the music begins. You get to pick the music if you want. I couldn't think of anything except something ridiculous - Mississippi John Hurt if you want to know - so I got New Age, which is basically flutes and guitars and pianos run through a synthesizer until it comes out like a rainforest rhapsody.
In this bed, you feel the music in much the same way you do if you jam a giant boom box into your ear. Except you feel it all over. It seems to come up through your . . . well, up through your spine is the best way to put it, I guess. It's all supposed to be soothing and relaxing.
But I am lying here thinking, Is this all there is? Isn't something supposed to HAPPEN?
This is not working. Now I am thinking of music I could have chosen: Vivaldi would be nice, or Strauss.
Suddenly everything is quiet. It is over.
``How was it?'' I am asked.
I can't frame a response. I am thinking, this is a pretty quick ``treatment.'' And nothing happened.
How long did that last, I ask.
``Forty minutes exactly.''
I was thinking no more than 25, max.
So that's what happened. I relaxed and didn't even know it.
Sanibel sidetrip: The resort has its own beach on the mainland, complete with various watersports equipment, but the barrier islands, just out in the shallow Gulf waters across a toll causeway, are a strong attraction.
Sanibel and Captiva, two of the largest islands, are considered together as perhaps the the third best shelling spot in the world by collectors. The sand is as powdery white as confectioners' sugar.
It is impossible to walk even a few yards on the beach without seeing someone doing the Sanibel Stoop - truly a chiropractor's dream - in search of the perfect conch, coquina, calico scallop or another of the 275 types of shells on these beaches.
It's an eco-friendly place, too. The islands are famous for their wildlife, particularly bald eagles, herons, egrets, ibises, pelicans and other water birds. Best viewing is in the J.N. (Ding) Darling National Wildlife Refuge, a 5,000-acre preserve named for a 1940s political cartoonist and avid conservationist who wintered on Captiva.
For baseball lovers, another springtime attraction is the training camps of the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins in nearby Fort Myers (40 minutes by car). MEMO: For specific information about:
Doral Golf Resort and Spa, call (800) 331-7768.
Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa, call (800) 767-7777.
For general spa information:
Read Foror's North America/Caribbean spa guide.
Request a general brochure called ``How to Spa Like a Pro'' by
calling (800) SPA-KIVA.
For other locations, call Spa-Finders (800) 255-7727. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
SANIBEL HARBOR RESORT & SPA
Sanibel: Recalling a golden era in Florida history, the pavilion and
cupola are the hallmarks of the Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa near
Fort Myers.
STEPHEN HARRIMAN
Doral: Classical statuary, splashing fountains and formal gardens
welcome you to the Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami.
Photo
``THE WIZARD OF OZ''/Corbis-Bettmann
SANIBEL HARBOUR RESORT & SPA
The tennis center at Sanibel Harbour was the site of the Davis Cup
finals in 1989 and 1992.
by CNB