
It is a double-decker type of scorching tub at Paradise Village.
Have you ever ever wished to be soup? Bobbing in a effervescent stew like a chunk of carrot or wedge of potato? It will not be a standard fantasy, however in Ashford, a small city on the agricultural fringe of Pierce County, it’s an achievable one.
Within the heart of the Paradise Village Lodge grounds, the Cannibal Scorching Tub is a 5,000-pound cast-iron cauldron anchored in a two-level construction fabricated from rebar and concrete. Its excessive arched roof provides it ceremonial grandeur, textured to appear to be stone. On the bottom degree, a wooden fireplace burns in a chosen nook lined with bricks, warming the underside of the human-size kettle above.

River rocks, proper, line the underside of the recent tub.
Stairs climb to the floor of the bathtub, a darkish pool of water about eight ft in diameter. Large easy rocks line the underside, just like the boulders on the mattress of the close by Nisqually River, smoothed by the speeding glacier soften. These stones are mandatory; the underside of the bathtub will get completely scorching. It is a scorching tub for critical soakers.
Paradise Village proprietor Anatoliy Zaika created the one-of-a-kind setup himself; he took the concept from his native Ukraine, the place the observe of bathing in a chan, or open-air tub, has roots within the Carpathian Mountains. In some methods, the setup is as conventional because it comes; the central steel piece got here from Ukraine in a transport container. It traveled throughout the globe to achieve Paradise Village which sits on the sting of one other dramatic peak; the doorway to Mt. Rainier Nationwide Park is simply 10 minutes down the highway. Ashford, a sequence of retailers and resorts unfold alongside a state freeway, principally serves as gateway to the mountain and its recreation.

Small home, massive mountain: Paradise Village lodging are close to the doorway to Mt. Rainier Nationwide Park.
The title, however, isn’t conventional in any respect. Zaika was establishing the bathtub about 5 years in the past when an Australian visitor on the lodge got here out to view his progress. “I defined the concept, after which he discovered me the subsequent morning,” Zaika says. “He stated, ‘Hey, Anatoliy, how in regards to the Cannibal Scorching Tub?’” (Past the sense that, sure, that is what it could take to make sodium-free human inventory, the moniker doesn’t have a lot significance. No tchotchkes or decor that recommend a human buffet or a horror film.)

The Paradise Village chilly plunge provides prompt reduction.
Heating the bathtub takes nearly an hour in winter, and Zaika drains it after every use; for that purpose leases begin at $140 per hour, bookable prematurely by visitors of Paradise Village and nonguests alike. The expertise is a bit odd—you’re actually in a cauldron, and the underside feels scorching sufficient to braise an errant toe. However the odor of the wooden fireplace and mountain drizzle completes a compelling scene, one which delivers a lot of the muscle-friendly advantages of a scorching tub soak (no jets, although).
Whereas the Cannibal Scorching Tub is Paradise Village’s most uncommon part, the small campus has grown since Zaika purchased the property about 10 years in the past. A small café and bakery operates day by day, the pastry case lined with tarts and cheesecakes, plus sq. slices of spartak cake, an Japanese European delicacy whose skinny layers are separated by cream. Subsequent door, a restaurant serves pierogi and gnocchi-like galushki. Oh, and borsch, for anybody not turned off by stew after the recent tub expertise.

The multilayer spartak cake, proper, is a Paradise Village specialty.
Zaika and his household have managed to evoke Ukraine in each inside, lining the ceilings with uncovered wooden beams and giving every window a curved ornamental trim. The eating room’s excessive ceilings are lined with straw and lit with rustic chandeliers. One shelf shows elaborate dolls on the market, crafted by a Ukrainian girl who fled the present conflict. The motanki, a word close by explains, will not be merely playthings however talismans that function “an middleman between dwelling and useless souls.”
Paradise Village grows in each course. A handful of tiny properties are actually scattered in a subject throughout from the recent tub, and the standard lodge rooms acquired a facelift in 2023. A extra conventional wood-burning sauna and altering room abuts the recent tub, and a chilly plunge completes the country spa. Ashford slows down within the winter, much more so lately when the nationwide park started closing a number of days every week attributable to low staffing, so Zaika is continually fishing for brand spanking new concepts.

A store sells conventional Ukranian crafts like motanki, left.
It’s been 20 years since he left Ukraine—his spouse, Maria, now the Paradise Village chef, had family in Tacoma. Till the conflict, he returned to go to frequently. Now he focuses on the pavilion he’s constructing behind the restaurant, a construction that resembles the skeleton bones of a traditional barn. He’ll equip it with greater than 100 lights earlier than it debuts as a marriage venue. “Will probably be actually distinctive,” Zaika says, however isn’t seeking to shock or amuse anybody with the title of the most recent development challenge. “In all probability we are going to name it Gentle Home.”