The first
sauna of the Finnila family in San Francisco at 9 Douglass Street became a local attraction in the early 1910s. The sauna was built in the back yard of the small wood-structured Victorian building, which the Finnilas owned and where they lived. At the start, the sauna was used mainly by the Finnila family, friends and neighbors. However, the word spread, and in 1913 the Finnilas registered their service as a business and began accepting paying customers from the general public. The next-door neighbor at 5 Douglass made wine and would sell it over the fence to sauna patrons. But, due to popular demand, the Finnila family decided to expand the bathhouse business and to move to a larger space and in more central location. Finnila's opened a new bathhouse - ''Finnila's Finnish Baths'' - at 4032 17th Street in 1919, a half block west from the busy Castro Street. The Finnila family owned the entire 3-4 floor building, where the sauna facilities were built in the basement. There were two large traditional Finnish-style sauna-bathing rooms, one for women and another one for men. Both the women's and the men's sauna could accommodate about a dozen customers at a time. Throwing water on the hot rocks provided the hot steam for the
baths. There were large shower and dressing rooms separately for the ladies and for the men. There were also separate women's and men's massage rooms, also in the basement of the building. At busy times, additional rooms from the upper floor were used to accommodate the massage customers. The popularity of the Finnila's services prompted the Finnila family to expand the business even further. In 1932, Matti and Alexandra Finnila's son Alfred Finnila completed the construction of a large new ''Finnila's Finnish Baths'' bathhouse building on San Francisco's busy
Market Street, at the corner of Noe Street. The new bathhouse at 2284 Market Street was designed by Alfred Finnila himself. The bathhouse had large women's and men's public saunas, accessible from the lobby area, and smaller private saunas, accessible from labyrinth-style long hallways. There was also a large private sauna - sauna No. 21 -, known as "family sauna". Every morning c. 6 am, natural gas fires were lit on burners located along the hallways, on the walls, close to the floor level. Each burner threw a powerful flame into a pipeline, approximately three inch thick by diameter, which led underneath the hot rocks of a sauna. This design and method used for the heating of the saunas was unique. In the mid-1980s, the Finnila's Market Street bathhouse provided employment to a total of c. 65 employees, most of whom worked part-time. About 40 of these employees were certified masseuses and masseurs, who each worked anywhere between one and five work shifts per week. The bathhouse was open daily from 10 am to 11 pm (Sundays, from 8 am to 2 pm), providing both day- and night-shifts for its employees. Despite public outcry and attempts to prevent the closing of the popular Finnila's Market Street bathhouse, the old bathhouse building was demolished by the owners, Alfred Finnila and his sister Edna Jeffrey, soon after the farewell party held in the end of December 1985. Today, Edna Jeffrey is the main partner in the newly constructed
Market & Noe Center, which was built in place of the old bathhouse, next to Cafe Flore, at the intersection of Market and Noe Streets. After having served customers for over seven decades in the San Francisco's Castro District, the fourth and final location of Finnila's, ''Finnila's Health Club'', opened for the general public in 1986 at 645 Taraval Street in the San Francisco's
Sunset District. Hereafter, Finnila's was open only for women. The services included sauna-bathing, massage, aerobics and other health-related services. In the fall of 2000, ''Finnila's Health Club'' was shut down, due to retirement of Alfred Finnila. ==Finnila's in a novel by Svevanne Auerbach==