Still Point Wellness

The story

Robin Fann-Costanzo and Corey Costanzo both came out of the Esalen Institute. Robin joined the Big Sur institute's massage staff in 1992, helped build its teacher-training program, and was inducted into the World Massage Hall of Fame in 2012; she now chairs the Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association. Corey lived at Esalen from 2003 to 2008 on the massage staff, leading a weekly didgeridoo meditation at the famous cliffside baths — Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, credited it with adding "a fourth dimension" to the place. Still Point Wellness, on Tunnel Road in East Asheville, is that resume translated into a row of very quiet rooms.

The centerpiece is floating: four custom chambers from Float Lab in two sizes — six or four feet wide, eight feet long, seven feet tall — each holding thirteen inches of skin-temperature water saturated with 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt. Filtration runs an ozonator, UV light, two industrial pool filters, and a trace of bromine, which the spa says exceeds state health-department requirements, and every first-timer gets a walkthrough from a float specialist before the lights go out. The website credits the tank to John C. Lilly in 1954, and notes how far the hardware has come since the one Lilly gifted a dying Timothy Leary.

The other half of the operation is touch. The Stillpoint Signature Massage — long full-body strokes, hot towels and essential oils included — is Robin's own distillation of the Esalen style, and the staff bios read like an Esalen alumni page. Add a private far-infrared sauna, facials built on local C&Co. skincare, and an Integration Lounge with a saltwater aquarium, tea, heated neck wraps, weighted blankets, and journals. It doubles as a school: Robin teaches continuing-education workshops here, up to a 100-hour Esalen program.