In true entrepreneur fashion, Spencer Luedtke — founder of Luedtke Design & Build — sat in a friend’s sauna, assessed the structure and thought, “I could build this.”
With several years of experience in remodeling and new construction already under his belt, adding saunas to his repertoire felt far more exciting than intimidating. Luedtke was already a proud owner of his self-proclaimed “builder brain,” so the new adventure in his business was a welcome challenge.
Over a year later, LDB Sauna is a brand in its own right, as Luedtke’s three-man team crafts cedar barrel sauna kits out of a charming 3,200-square-foot warehouse, delivering relaxation to the community and beyond.
THE DEAL WITH BARREL
“Sauna was just in the air,” Luedtke reflects on the winter months of 2023. “I was in the middle of another six-to-eightmonth new build, using my friend’s barrel sauna occasionally, and I decided that I could replicate it.
“My partner was talking about it a lot at the time, too. She had memories of our sauna retreat in California, and talked about bringing that type of experience closer to home. I already had a lot of woodworking equipment, so all it took were a few new specialty pieces to make a prototype.”
But why the barrel?
More efficient heating, for one, Luedtke says. “Compared to a cube, a cylinder like our barrel sauna has less space to heat. It’s an intuitive unit, from both the user and builder side of things.
“I like the simplicity of them and the fact that they’re pretty easy to put together for people who want to have their own kit and build it themselves,” he explains. “They’re very structured. It’s amazing — once it’s together, you can stand right on top of it!”
THE FIRST WAVE
Getting started after the first prototype was no small feat, Luedtke shares. During the summer 2024 season, a considerable amount of interest bolstered their progress.
“I built a few more that summer, but in the winter of 2024, it really took off. I had more orders coming in at that point. This meant we outgrew our original garage, which was a 25-by-25-foot space. That works for a lot of stuff,” he says good-naturedly, “but not when the space is only big enough to fit two of the products you’re building.”
In January 2025, the company moved to a historical (and much larger) warehouse in the small town of Mount Horeb, Wis., its current home.
Driving up to the shop is an immediate integration into the work that Luedtke and his team, including Ben Cameron and Julio Bustos, do every day. The LDB trucks flaunt their logo in the driveway, poised for deliveries. The garage doors are rolled back to show off the built-to-scale sauna, settled in its cradle — a sneak peek to the product that completes the majority of their inventory.
“People come by all the time and ask us what we’re doing because they can see into our shop,” Luedtke says. “It’s a huge space, it’s beautiful in there. Eventually, we thought it would be a good idea to just build one and keep it onsite.”
A CHARMING COLLECTIVE
Luedtke is the epitome of an eager craftsman as he shows off his shop, explaining the stream-lined process and separate stations that go into creating the luscious product that so many customers rave about.
Between the three of them, Luedtke, Cameron and Bustos can build the frame relatively quickly and complete it easily in a single day. They can always ship the saunas on a trailer and drop them on the site, Luedtke explains, but he prefers being able to assess the site beforehand, in order to better fit the sauna to the surroundings.
“There are other styles that might work better,” he admits. “There are experts in the field of saunas that might know the perfect dimensions, perfect angles, perfect conditions that make the best sauna. But the beautiful thing about our saunas is that they’re working for us, and they’re amazing for our customers.”
One of the most enchanting things about the order of operations at LDB Sauna is the reality of having each product be built by hand. “We have an eye for detail,” Luedtke says. “We don’t like to let many errors slip past, but it’s a part of the human touch. I’m not here to scale and create a product that we can just get a machine to do. Having human touch as a major part of the process is the point.”
Locally and almost completely handmade from a small business in a small town — what’s better than that?
“I feel like everybody who buys one of our saunas, in a way, becomes a friend,” he smiles. “This happens a lot. We spend a whole day at the customer’s property building it, so there’s naturally some conversations that come out of it.
“And what’s nice is that we can generally accommodate the specific requests we get,” he explains. “We do custom benches and other specific pieces to make the sauna unique to their wishes.”
ROLLING INTO THE FUTURE
If his jump into building saunas in just over a year is any indication, Luedtke doesn’t shy away from new ideas. Instead, he embraces them and makes a plan to introduce them as soon as he reasonably can. Next up: a public sauna? A line of hot tubs? Saunas that can convert to sleepaways? The possibilities are endless.
Some of these goals — like the use of a shared sauna similar to community pools in the summertime — may take more time than others. But his determination bleeds into every word; given the right materials, he can build virtually anything.
“My builder mind is going constantly. Everything I’m looking at, I always think, ‘How do I build this?’ A sauna’s just a large piece of furniture,” he shrugs.
It’s no secret that pride is woven into every part of LDB’s process — into each cedar plank and each raucous laugh that echoes around the space; the culture in the shop makes that clear enough.
With big plans for the future and only one year under their belt, Luedtke and his small but mighty team are ready for whatever the coming years will bring. They’re making their mark on Mount Horeb and the industry, one sauna at a time.
This article first appeared in the September 2025 issue of AQUA Magazine — the top resource for retailers, builders and service pros in the pool and spa industry. Subscriptions to the print magazine are free to all industry professionals. Click here to subscribe.
