Historic bathhouse in sleepy Sacramento Delta town for sale at $600K. Take a look inside

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The historic Miyazaki Bathhouse and Gallery in the quiet community of Walnut Grove on the banks of the Sacramento River is for sale.

The residence was originally built in 1916 after a catastrophic fire swept through the town and was later painstakingly restored over an eight-year period beginning in 2003.

The price tag is just under $600,000.

Miyazaki Bathhouse sits in the heart of Walnut Grove’s Japantown, at 1250 B St. When Walnut Grove was divided into Japanese and Chinese sections in the early 1900s, the Miyazaki family owned the two-story structure and operated the bathhouse behind a candy and ice cream shop in the front. They lived upstairs.

The upstairs once served as a bunkhouse for migrant farmworkers, but today the second floor’s “light, bright, charming” and refurbished apartments are rented, according to listing agent Paloma Begin of Compass.

Walnut Grove, population 814, is a Delta hamlet about 30 miles south of Sacramento, not far from Interstate 5. The town neighbors the community of Locke, home to about 100 people.

A new owner will find the turnkey property full of possibilities, either as a three-bedroom, three-bathroom private residence, a shop, museum, bed-and-breakfast, rental space or day spa.

One thing is certain, the buyer will own a historic bathhouse that is in much better shape than when San Francisco resident Eugene Phillips stumbled upon it while driving home along the Delta’s back roads after erecting an art installation at Burning Man.

Long journey back to elegance

He and business and life partner Montserrat Wassam purchased the place in 2003, beginning a long journey of bringing the residence back to elegance after decades of neglect.

“The bathhouse area proper had no walls or roof, and between the tile and the doorway that goes into the rest of (the house) was just dirt and it had trees growing out of it,” said Wassam, an artist who ran the business side of the bathhouse beginning around 2010. Plants snaked around the bathing fixtures and the original arches suspended over the tubs were found buried in the dirt among the ruins.

Phillips, an expert in Victorian home restoration, and Wassam salvaged and restored much of the original wood and the stairway leading to the upstairs boarding rooms. They repaired the cracked and crumbling tub tiles with attention to period details. The couple worked with the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, Sacramento historian Barbara Takei and photographs from renowned photographer Pirkle Jones to try to match the look of the original facade and interior.

The county’s housing and redevelopment agency provided a $70,000 grant, but Wassam estimated they pumped another $300,000 of their own money into the project.

What now stands is a beautiful property that is an integral part of the small and quirky riverside community.

The actual bathhouse is found in the rear of the building, where a large, open room with cedar walls is naturally lit by two skylights, one of them the original. The bathhouse has two deep soaking tubs adorned with vintage tiles of pinkish-beige with a green trim. There are two scrub stations and a shower/steam room.

Douglas fir floors and cedar beadboard walls span the large living/dining room area next to the baths on the first floor. A quiet, shady public park area is adjacent to the home.

‘Only functioning historic Japanese bathhouse’

Miyazaki Bathhouse is believed to be “the only functioning historic Japanese bathhouse left in the country,” The Bee reported in 2014. While a few Japanese bathhouses can be found around the state, none seem to go back to the pre-World War II days when Japanese immigrants used them not only for cleansing and relaxation, but to socialize and even conduct business.

The Miyazaki Bathhouse dates back to at least 1916. Because it was illegal then for Japanese immigrants to own land, most owners in Japantown leased. When World War II started, the Miyazakis were incarcerated in detention camps as part of the Japanese internment. Sacramento County took over control of the buildings, The Bee previously reported.

When Wassam ran the bathhouse, she offered guests two baths, warm and cold, a steam room, a tatami area for tea service and meditation.

“You come in for two hours, you get fresh hot ginger tea, the shades are drawn, the doors are locked, you get that area all to yourself for that time,” Wassam told The Bee in 2014. “It’s a wonderful experience.”

She set up an art gallery in the front part of the building that featured some of her own paintings and changed exhibits every couple of months.

“After we had started our business, Walnut Grove exploded,” Wassam said. ”All the storefronts were taken, there were little businesses everywhere. We had a First Friday Art Walk.”

Now the time has come to sell the property because Phillips is dealing with health issues and the couple doesn’t travel to Walnut Grove as much as they would like, Wassam said.

While Wassam sees many paths the next steward of the property might take, “the ideal buyer in my mind would be a Japanese entity that would showcase it as a museum,” she said.

De facto museum

As is, the building is a de facto Japanese American museum. It contains a large assortment of handmade kimonos hanging on the walls, kabuki masks, an antique rickshaw and a binder full of historic photos and original bathhouse tickets.

Begin, the listing agent, said the ideal buyer could be an artist who wants to run a gallery below while living upstairs, a holistic health practitioner, someone with a strong interest in the history of the Sacramento Delta and an appreciation for Japanese culture, or a homeowner who wants additional rental income from the upstairs apartments.

“If you didn’t want to run a bathhouse, but wanted a really sumptuous kick-a-- bathroom, then you could do that,” she said. “I’m calling this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I mean, this (property) is extremely rare.”