From Vesturbær To The West Side

Sund is trying to bring Icelandic swimming culture to New York City

“They put the Icelanders in the sun!” Alex Breki Jónsson laughs as we sit down at our table, indeed, the only one directly in the hot New York sun. On this particular July afternoon, I’m grabbing beers with two of the three founders of Sund, the new project aiming to bring Icelandic swimming culture to New York City. Alex and Bjarki Sigurðarson, who join me at this table, along with Styrmir Elí, are CFO, COO, and CEO, respectively. The three Icelanders all studied in New York — Alex and Bjarki at Columbia University, Styrmir at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting — and found that the swimming pools were one of the major things they missed from their homeland.

“I think pretty much all Icelanders who move abroad miss this part of our culture dearly,” says Alex. “We were, all three, looking for something similar in the city and couldn’t really find it,” adds Bjarki. When they couldn’t find it, an idea started to percolate between them.

“We all had this idea in our stomach, like, ‘this would be so cool in New York,’” says Alex, continuing, “Then we noticed this huge wave of wellness growing bigger and bigger in the US. People are more interested in saunas, cold plunges, bathing in general. And we figured this super unique, super dear-to-our-heart Icelandic product would be perfect for the city.”

In April of this year, the three quit their full-time jobs and began actualising their idea of bringing Icelandic outdoor bathing culture to NYC. Sund has been making a splash on social media, where they post enthusiastic explanations of the Icelandic bathing culture. One video features Bjarki grinning at the camera outside Laugardalslaug while saying, “In Icelandic, ‘sund’ means swim. It’s not a spa, it’s not a gym, it’s a freaking lifestyle!” In another, Styrmir interviews Icelanders about what gossip they’ve overheard in the hot tubs.

Wellness is trending

The two co-founders cite a spike in wellness culture, specifically bathing culture within that, as spurring Sund from an idea to a project. But they also hold some major criticisms of some trends, and note how aspects of the Icelandic culture resist them. Common tropes of wellness bros who persevere in the sauna and cold plunge longer than is comfortable are not the way Sund aims to do it; Bjarki explains that Sund “is a lifestyle product. There’s no right or wrong way of doing it. We’re all different people. We all have different bodies. It’s about how you feel each and every day.”

“I think pretty much all Icelanders who move abroad miss this part of our culture dearly.”

Further, the setting for these wellness centres is often spas, which end up being quite expensive. “The biggest barriers to [going to baths] more often are price and accessibility,” Alex explains. “That’s the core of the Icelandic bathing culture. It’s extremely accessible.”

It’s fair to note that, of course, the cost of operating a pool in NYC differs vastly from Iceland, and the price point of Sund reflects that. Their Sund is not publicly funded and owned the way it works in Iceland, and NYC undoubtedly lacks the abundance of geothermally heated water that the Icelandic pools rely on. Sund offers advance memberships at a high discount, with these primary investors becoming “founding members” of Sund. With this founding member discount, a 20-visit pack at Sund costs 60.415 ISK (without discount, it’s 193.348 ISK). In Reykjavík, a 20-visit sundkort costs 11.500 ISK.

Location, location, location

The Sund team is eyeing a spot in Western Manhattan — they’ve scouted close to 50 potential locations — on the 19th floor of a building where they aim to install saunas, heated pools on the outdoor terrace, and, of course, the cold plunge. As they plan and dream, they’ve formed an all-star team around them. “It’s all revolved around the Icelandic bathing culture, but I think it’s going to be a cool thing that we’ll have an all-around Nordic experience with authentic Finnish saunas, authentic Icelandic pools and then Danish architects,” he says, noting their collaboration with world-renowned architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group.

They haven’t secured their target location yet, so they’re solidly in the planning — not the building — stage. At the moment, they’re building their brand, stirring intrigue on social media with videos from Icelandic pools (that occasionally result in a confused American commenting, “Where in NY is this?”). At the moment, Sund is hosting pop-up events in both NYC and Iceland, offering cold plunges on the streets of New York or free pool entry after a run partnered with Icelandic running brand (and friends of Sund) Vecct.

But they definitely have big dreams for Sund. “Our vision is to have a local Sund in every New York City neighbourhood,” starts Alex, continuing, “Beyond that, our vision is to expand it further in the US and create a national brand rooted in this Icelandic view.” Bjarki immediately adds, “And eventually, going international.” Sundhöll Vestur-Manhattan? Later, maybe Tókýóslaug?

You can see Sund on social media @sundsocialclub, buy from the Sund presale at sundnyc.com, and at the end of our interview, they tease, “We’re potentially looking at doing something on Menningarnótt, I think we can announce that. It’s in the works. Hopefully it’ll come through.”