The King of Spa Castle

Steve Chon's drive, determination, work ethic, and single-minded focus helped him build his spa empire. And led him to almost lose it all.

- Saki Knafo

IN A SECLUDED SECTION OF QUEENS, NEW YORK, almost an hour’s walk from the nearest subway station, a four-story building with a façade the shade of orange sherbet rises above a grim collection of auto-part shops and dusty warehouses. Inside, past a pair of faux castle doors, there’s a kaleidoscopic array of pools and fountains and bubbling hot tubs and saunas, including a sauna lined with gold-color tiles and another encrusted with candy-color stones.

If this marvel of plumbing is the “Disneyland of Spas,” as Susie Ellis, a spa industry analyst, has called it, then its Walt Disney is Steve Chon, a small, terminally unsatisfied man of 56. Chon can occasionally be seen stepping out onto the penthouse balcony overlooking Spa Castle’s rooftop pools, scanning his realm of relaxation through a pair of sunglasses. He sometimes dresses a bit like an ersatz Beat poet, in a black turtleneck, black slacks, black-rim glasses, and shiny black shoes. He has a flair for drama. “I always see something bad,” he says. “Why is the customer service so bad? Why is this thing falling apart? The water coming down in the shower feels hot. All of a sudden it’s becoming cold. Why?”

Chon may have a hard time relaxing, but his intense devotion to work has helped make Spa Castle a modern New York City institution. People have flocked by the hundreds of thousands to bathe in its all-nude single-sex pools, to sprawl on the heated floor of the nap area, and to submit to the merciless Korean exfoliation technique known as the body scrub. Spa Castle is described as a