WEST LEBANON — A stroll down the length of the Staples Plaza on Route 12A reveals an eclectic group of businesses.
Patrons at the plaza’s 11 stores can indulge in a chicken sub, a plate-sized cookie, a new vape, a fresh haircut and a discounted mattress, all in an afternoon.
As of Friday, they also can relax at Upper Valley Salt Cave and Wellness Center, a new business opening in the plaza.
The center includes two “salt caves,” compact rooms where customers are encouraged to sit back and take deep breaths of air that has been infused with Himalayan salt particles, reaping the purported health benefits.
“You go in and just relax for 45 minutes and breathe in the salt,” Shawn Griffin, of Lebanon, said in an interview last week at the center. Griffin runs the center with is romantic partner, Allison Laverture
Proponents of the practice, known as halotherapy, say it supports immune and respiratory health, though there is little scientific research to support the claims.
Griffin, who owns Upper Valley Stove Co. in Lebanon, first started using salt caves seven years ago when his then-partner suggested it might ease the dizziness and shortness of breath he experienced when climbing ladders at work.
He started attending weekly sessions at salt caves in Rutland, Vt.; Montgomery, Vt.; Exeter, N.H.; and Plaistow, N.H., which he credited with lessening his symptoms. Eventually, he got a formal diagnosis for a bacterial infection and started taking medication that erased his symptoms completely.
Still, the salt caves made an impression on Griffin, and with Lavertue offering to run the center, he decided to take the leap. He will split his time at Upper Valley Stove Co., which sells a range of wood stoves and fireplaces.
Lavertue recently resigned from her job as a medical assistant at Mount Ascutney Hospital and Health Center in Windsor because she was looking for a change of pace after more than 20 years there.
After viewing several different locations, the couple settled on the 2,500-square-foot plaza storefront as it gave them enough space to expand their offerings as the business grows. (Ironically, the store has moved in next to Vapor World Smoke Shop on the far end of the plaza, near Staples. Smoking and vaping are not permitted in the salt caves.)
The front of the store has a retail section where customers can purchase salt lamps cut into shapes ranging from a horse’s head to a Holy Cross to the classic rough-edged oval.
Across from the display is a desk where customers can check in and pay for their desired service.
Each service is sequestered in its own room that’s accessed through a long central hallway. The center has one large salt cave that serves eight people at a time, and a smaller cave for pairs.
In the larger cave, reclining chairs are arranged in a semicircle facing a salt mosaic designed to look like a mountain range. The chairs sit atop a bed of crushed salt that patrons are encouraged to nestle their feet in. The remaining walls are lined halfway up with large, pale pink salt boulders that Griffin installed himself.
In the smaller salt cave, a moon-lit beach scene wraps around the walls.
“Everyone around here always goes to Maine to go to the beach, so we came up with this,” Griffin said.
Outside the rooms, in closet-sized spaces are halogenerators that pulverize salt pieces into microparticles, which are then filtered into the salt cave using a fan system.
Each halogenerator costs $5,500.
It’s this salt-infused air that’s meant to provide respiratory health benefits for clients due to the antimicrobial properties of the salt, Griffin said.
Sessions in the salt caves last 45 minutes and cost $50 for adults; $30 for teens ages 13 to 17; and $25 for children ages 12 and under. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
The center offers a handful of other services such as red light therapy in which clients lie under a light that’s meant to alleviate muscle soreness.
“It’s like a heat pad but it goes directly to the muscle,” Griffin said.
Sessions cost $25 for 20 minutes.
There’s also a hand-and-foot detox room, where clients are instructed to lay their appendages on warm orbs of salt for 30 minutes, which causes them to sweat.
The “sweatiness takes out the bad stuff,” Lavertue said.
Other services include the Oxygen Sauna Booth, a sealed pod that’s filled with an excess of oxygen, which is meant to promote relaxation and increase circulation. Clients can adjust the amount of oxygen in the booth up to level 10. (Lavertue and Griffin weren’t sure by what percentage the oxygen in the pod increases at each level.)
Currently no certifications or other evaluations are required to operate a salt cave, though Lavertue has completed a virtual 12-unit course for facilitators through the Salt Therapy Association, an international halotherapy resource center that is headquartered in Florida and was founded in 2014.
Leo M. Tonkin, CEO of the halotherapy equipment business Salt Chamber, is among the Salt Therapy Association’s board members, according to the center’s website.
The science is still inconclusive on whether salt caves are effective treatment for respiratory and skin ailments, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Griffin pays $4,200 a month to rent the space from Peter E. Johnson Building Supplies, Inc., the West Lebanon company that owns the plaza. To get the business off the ground, he pulled $175,000 from his savings.
He hopes to recoup the money by eventually selling Upper Valley Stove Co., which he’s owned for 19 years, but for now he plans to keep both businesses. The stove company was hit pretty hard by tariffs on steel, and Griffin had to adjust the store’s prices to account for the rise in costs.
The arrival of the center, as well as Tropical Smoothie Cafe, T-Mobile, Jersey Mike’s and Crumbl Cookie, which opened in the last year, means that all the plaza’s storefronts are now full.
The plaza storefront was formerly occupied by an extension of Vapor World, said Meredith Johnson, whose family runs Peter E. Johnson Building Supplies, Inc.
“I’m very hopeful that (the business) will be successful for Griffin,” Johnson said. “I know he’s put a lot into it and it’s a pretty neat concept.”