Spa Colmegna: the 1895 bathhouse hidden in Buenos Aires
Sauna, steam, a marble cold pool and 130 years of history in central Buenos Aires. What Spa Colmegna is, how the circuit works and what to confirm before you go.
The façade on Sarmiento street does not prepare you for what is on the other side. A few blocks from the Obelisco, Spa Colmegna still holds its heat rooms, stained glass, bronze fittings and a marble-lined cold pool. The place opened at the end of the nineteenth century and still takes bathers in the centre of Buenos Aires.
It tends to show up in the press as a European palace, a Roman bath, or the first spa in Latin America. The image is seductive, but it mixes history, oral tradition and tourism language. For anyone planning to visit, a more useful question is a different one: what kind of experience does the Colmegna actually offer today?
What Spa Colmegna is
The Colmegna is a historic bathhouse that took on spa services. Its program gathers a dry sauna, a Turkish bath, a steam room, a cold pool, a warm pool and rest. Massage, facials, barbering and other services can be booked separately.
That puts it between two categories. The circuit of heat, cold and company follows bathhouse logic. The individual treatments and the beauty services belong to the spa. The current name leans on the second identity, but the floor plan and the ritual tell an older story.
According to the house’s own account, the Italian Luis Colmegna founded the establishment in 1895. There is at least one verifiable historical record: the 1905 Guía Nacional listed, at Sarmiento 839, the “Instituto Médico de Hidro-Electro-Terapia y Casa de Baños” of Luis Colmegna. It was one of ten paid private bathhouses recorded in that edition.
That detail puts the address in the right context. In the early twentieth century, Buenos Aires had private bathhouses downtown and municipal public baths in other neighbourhoods. The Colmegna was not born as an isolated extravagance. It was part of an urban infrastructure of hygiene, hydrotherapy and sociability that has almost entirely disappeared.
How the circuit works
A visit described by La Nación in 2025 followed a sequence of rising temperatures: an acclimatising room, a milder dry sauna, a hotter sauna, the Turkish bath and steam. Then came the marble cold pool, fed by water from an underground aquifer, followed by rest or another round.
It is a recognisable contrast circuit, but with two differences from contemporary studios. The first is duration. This is not about running through a quick sauna-and-ice sequence. There are cabins, tables and places to talk between stages. The second is the material environment. Marble, wood, stained glass and original ironwork are not decoration applied over a new build. They are part of a building made for bathing.
The most photographed element is the cold pool of the Salón Esmeralda. Recent reporting puts the water between 8 °C and 10 °C (46–50 °F). That is intense for anyone unaccustomed to it. There is no reason to turn getting in into an endurance test: start with a short dip, get out if you feel dizzy or unwell, and talk to a health professional before the visit if you have a cardiovascular condition or any other restriction on heat and cold.
Roman, Turkish or porteño?
Calling the Colmegna a “Roman Turkish bath” bundles together different traditions. Roman thermae organised bathing, exercise, rest and public life into large complexes. The hammam, often called a Turkish bath, developed another repertoire of steam, washing and body care. The Colmegna combines European references and rooms with assorted names, but it is not a faithful reproduction of any of those traditions.
It is, above all, porteño. The circuit was adapted to life in the microcentro and became a meeting place for politicians, artists, athletes and people working in the area. That social dimension matters as much as the marble. A bathhouse stays alive when people linger, talk and come back, not when it merely preserves an old appearance.
The documented history and the stories told
The Colmegna’s fame also lives on anecdote. Carlos Gardel supposedly always used the same cabin and composed “Mi Buenos Aires querido” there. Jorge Luis Borges supposedly referred to “the Turkish baths on Sarmiento and Esmeralda” in The Aleph. The original design is often attributed to Francesco Tamburini, the architect tied to the Casa Rosada and the Teatro Colón.
These stories should be read carefully. Even recent sources present Tamburini’s authorship as a belief, with no published documentation. The Gardel visit circulates as a myth. In the case of Borges, the text of The Aleph mentions a Turkish bath establishment near the Brighton seaside resort, not the address at Sarmiento and Esmeralda. The association with the Colmegna comes from family accounts and from regulars, as a piece in Revista Anfibia shows.
None of that makes the place less interesting. On the contrary: it shows how an address in use for more than a century accumulates memory, exaggeration and affection. It is simply not wise to turn oral tradition into an architectural caption.
The 2019 closure and the reopening
In November 2019 the building was evacuated after damage associated with nearby underground works. Walls, floors and parts of the finishes were affected. The spa stayed closed while those responsible worked out the repairs and the liability for the damage.
The Colmegna reopened to the public after restoration work. That reopening is an important part of the visit today: the bather does not find an untouched museum, but a historic building that went through a recent rupture and remains in use.
What to know before you go
| Detail | Notes |
|---|---|
| Address | Sarmiento 839, central Buenos Aires |
| Circuit | Dry sauna, Turkish bath, steam, cold and warm pools, rest |
| Hours published in July 2026 | Tuesday to Friday, 2pm to 9pm; Saturday, noon to 8pm |
| Sunday and Monday | Closed |
| Access | The space has historically been men-only; recent reporting mentions special mixed dates |
| Booking and price | Confirm directly with the house before your visit |
Hours, prices, available services and access rules can change. Check Spa Colmegna on Instagram before you plan around it. The Baires Secreta piece, published in July 2026, is the most recent source for the hours above.
Go expecting a century-old house, not a newly opened spa with uniform finishes. The interest lies exactly in the overlap: a contemporary heat-and-cold circuit running inside a rare piece of South American bathing culture.
Next step: read Bathhouse, spa, recovery and hot springs: what changes between bathing spaces to compare the Colmegna with other formats, or open the Bathhouse map to look for bathhouses in other cities.