The Day I Got Lost (...And Found the Blueprint for Building Community)

Written by Jon, Co-Founder, Alchemy Springs

Jon is the Co-Founder of Alchemy Springs, a modern bathhouse in San Francisco built on the belief that connection, ritual, and shared spaces can transform how we live.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, one afternoon quietly changed the trajectory of my life.

Not in an obvious way.

Not in a “this is a big moment” kind of way.

It just… stayed with me.

And years later, it became the foundation for everything we’re building at Alchemy Springs.

I grew up in New York, and in my senior year of high school a few friends and I took a weekend road trip to Montreal. We did exactly what you’d expect from a group of 18-year-olds. We went out, had some fun, stayed up too late, and created stories we’d half-remember.

On the drive home, we got completely lost.

This was before smartphones. No GPS. Just a group of guys pretending we knew where we were going.

My best friend’s last name is Strombelline and we’ve always called him Strom. So when we saw a sign for Strøm Spa Nordique, we started laughing.

It felt like a coincidence we couldn’t ignore.

We pulled in to ask for directions.

Instead, we stayed the entire day.

I still remember walking through the door.

Everything shifted.

It was quiet. Calm. Clean. Minimal. The air smelled incredible. People spoke softly. No one seemed rushed. No one seemed like they had anywhere else to be.

For the first time in a long time we weren’t chasing anything.

No sports. No parties. No screens. No trying to impress anyone.

We just… slowed down.

We moved between hot and cold. Sat in silence. Talked. Laughed. Met some strangers. Reflected.

And somehow, without trying, we connected more deeply than we had through years of being friends.

That same group is still incredibly close today.

We take annual trips. We have our own traditions. We’ve been on Slack since its inception… discussion channels ranging from finances to wellness to politics and everything in between.

The five of us show up for each other in real ways.

Honestly, I’m not sure we’d be this close without that day.

At that time, I didn’t have language for what happened.

Now I do.

Community isn’t something you force.

It isn’t something you schedule or manufacture.

It’s something you design.

It’s creating the conditions for people who don’t know each other (but should) to actually connect.

Not shallow networking. Not another loud room where everyone leaves feeling emptier than when they arrived.

Real connection. Real trust. Real relationships.

Community is friendship, designed well.

That lesson quietly shaped everything that came after.

It influenced my years at Summit Series.

It shaped how I approached community at Abundance360.

And now it sits at the center of what we’re building at Alchemy.

There’s a room we bring every guest through when they arrive at our pop-up, Alchemy Sauna Garden.

On the walls are mood boards. Materials, textures, ideas, glimpses of what Alchemy Springs is becoming.

A future people can react to before it exists.

We ask simple questions:

What resonates?

What doesn’t?

What do you want more of?

We’ve made real changes based on those conversations.

In a very real sense, we’re building this place with community, not just for it.

There’s one board in that room I always stop at.

It’s a simple image of a minimal Corten steel spa front desk, with a big word on it:

Strøm

Here’s something that still gives me chills:

I never told our architects that story from when I was 18. But while we were designing the space, they presented the guest arrival experience and the very first image they chose for inspiration was that exact front desk at Strøm.

Now, as we build Alchemy Springs, I think about that experience often.

We’re not really building a spa.

We’re building a place where moments like that have a chance to happen again.

Where someone walks in stressed and walks out lighter.

Where strangers become friends.

Where friends become closer.

Where someone remembers what it feels like to slow down.

Where connection feels natural again.

Sometimes getting lost is how you find the work you’re meant to do.

— Jon, Co-Founder, Alchemy Springs