Why Interior Designers Are Still Totally Obsessed With Bathtubs
For centuries, a warm bath has remained one of life’s great luxuries. From the earliest examples of bathing facilities at the Palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete to modern architectural marvels like Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals in Switzerland, the reassuring comfort provided by a deep soak has long been treated as nothing less than sacred.
Winston Churchill was so enamored with bathtubs that he routinely took two baths per day (with the water temperature set at a precise 98 degrees) and made many of his most important decisions while submerged, even when England was under attack during World War II. Although few of us have the time to follow Churchill’s example today, as we speed through showers to rush to morning meetings, bathtubs haven’t lost their allure.
“Bathtubs are the ultimate at-home self-care indulgence,” says Noz Nozawa, founder of Noz Design in San Francisco. That was true in the past, but it’s especially true today as we wrestle with our time-constrained, productivity-obsessed lives. “Showers are a modern invention that principally help us save time in our bathing routines,” she says. “But having a bath is about taking time back for yourself.” Nozawa practices what she preaches: “I’m infamous among my loved ones for being able to out-soak anyone.”
In recent years, many homeowners tore out bathtubs during renovations to make way for more elaborate walk-in showers, prioritizing quick spray-downs over time-consuming steeping. But the trend of deleting bathtubs gradually stalled and then reversed.
“The bathroom is no longer just a place to brush your teeth and get ready for the day,” says Daniele Busca, the U.S. creative director of the Italian company Scavolini. “It’s more like your sanctuary. Especially after Covid, the meaning of the bathroom has completely changed.”
Now many designers are using sculptural tubs as the centerpieces of spa-like bathrooms. “They become this incredible focal point,” says Gary Eisner, founder of BuiltIN Studio in New York City. “When we have space for a big moment, an amazing bathtub provides a sense of grandeur.”
In one Manhattan apartment, Eisner elevated a curvaceous freestanding tub on a teak platform in front of a marble wall with integrated lighting to celebrate it. In another, he placed a tub on a stone pedestal directly in front of a window with an expansive view of the city (prying eyes be damned!).
The New York City–based ELLE DECOR A-List designer Rodney Lawrence frequently takes a similar approach, while paying special attention to the elements around the tub. “Because people don’t actually use the bathtub all the time, we display it like a piece of sculpture,” Lawrence says. “But then we also think about being in the tub when you’re reclining, looking up.”
Usually, that means adding a dramatic chandelier or light fixture, as in one bathroom where Lawrence mounted a custom Seed Cloud installation from Ochre with dozens of illuminated bronze-and-glass droplets overhead. The bathtub is also an ideal place to admire the intricacies of special stone and tile up close. In a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Lawrence placed the tub in a niche with a back wall formed by book-matched slabs of Cloud onyx. “It creates this interesting almost whirlpool of stone, with so much movement,” he says.
Such touches help fuel another dream: that the bathtub can serve as an escape from the quotidian right within your home. The key, once you’ve splurged on that bathtub you’ve always wanted, is to make sure you commit to it, just like Churchill did.
“People in the industry joke that most people use a bathtub twice—once when they move into the home, and once before they move out,” Eisner says. But ignoring all the other days in between, any dedicated bath-taker will tell you, means you’re simply missing out. As Busca puts it: “The bath is for that moment when body and soul get restored.”
This story originally appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of ELLE DECOR. SUBSCRIBE
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