1. 144 AH&L | 7.07
pat of Crest and your brother’s old
retainer—yours, unfortunately, having
been mangled by house pets.
The times … they are a-changin’!
These days, no self-respecting house,
either a new model in Duluth or a reno-
vated Ansley townhouse, is complete
without the Diva Bath. Drumroll, please!
What ever did we do without deluge
showerheads—and two per bath at that! If
our mothers thought a “whirlpool” was 14
tiny legs churning with Mr. Bubble, then
today’s streaming, pulsing, massaging water
must seem like a visit to Old Faithful.
No woman worth her Tory Burch’s is
content with anything less than a Diva
Bath. The DB is a sanctuary, a lair, a place
of atonement for all the sins visited
against us by an unforgiving world, a
world where we must work. So, at a
minimum, we need subway tile—all the
better if we can add marble, onyx, mosaic
and iridescent flourishes.
As for faucets, they must be matte sil-
ver or rhodium if we are feeling oh-
so-modern and groovy or agate or onyx
or lapis lazuli with basins to match if we
are feeling downright glamorous. From
slender onyx columns straight out of the
Delano hotel or yards of marble with
five-figure, gold-plated basins that gleam
like soft gems, no expense is spared in
creating our bathroom.
We are determined to get that shiatsu
massage that a 60-hour workweek and
demanding offspring continually deny us.
We want to be pelted from every angle
(that water destroys cellulite and, hey, it’s
a workout that can rival Pilates) and all
this while we sit on the deftly placed
marble ledge.
Yes, our showers last that long: Bless
that steady 747-velocity of water that
turns our entire bodies into one giant
pucker. Just try and wrest us out of here—
fat chance, what with the $400 gold-
plated deadbolts.
No, in Diva Baths there are settees for
lounging, fur throws for our pedicured
feet, and terry poufs to assist us in the art
of make-up application. Stacks of drawers
await our precious cosmetics. Deco mir-
rored trays hold our perfumes. Lucite
containers hold perfect Q-tips, cotton
balls and sable brushes. Mercury glass
vases hold fresh calla lilies. Towels so
thick that just a glancing blow dries head
to foot. But these aren’t towels—they are
acreage of velvety cotton. Candles and
sea salts, books and magazines abound
now that we have the Diva Bath with its
900 square feet of Nirvana.
We ain’t leavin’! ‘Cause we have a
plasma TV in here and we can darn well
watch George Clooney and dream.
one are the days when our
mothers made do with one bath
per five children and our dad-
dies showered outdoors with a garden
hose and some old dog shampoo after a
day of fishing. Bathrooms were some-
thing to be cleaned by misbehaving teens
with a can of Comet in one hand and a
poor report card in the other.
The bath of yesteryear was strictly
utilitarian. Masses of kids huddled
beneath a trickling stream of alternately
scalding and glacial water. The amenities
were nanny’s cast-off beach towels with
some aunt’s monogram (all the better if
she shared the same last name) and acces-
sories culled from the children’s craft
class. Toothbrushes were seldom
replaced, and dental hygiene involved a
Marcia Sherrill
Bath Rx
Marcia’s prescription for bath bliss
Photographed by Steve Pomberg
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