Bruce Schoenberg, owner of Oasis Day Spa in Dobbs Ferry and Manhattan, never intended to go into the spa business, being well-settled in the trade show industry and a life on the road. But a change in personal circumstances led to a desire for a career that required less travel. And so he immersed himself in the spa business.
“I went to the New York Public Library,” said Schoenberg, a New York City native who grew up on Long Island and received a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. “It was like graduate school.”
Besides becoming a familiar face at the library’s Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street flagship, he consulted spa specialists like Hannelore Levy, a Holocaust survivor who went on to found the Day Spa Association, of which Schoenberg is a board member, and the Med Spa Association. In 1998, he was ready to take the plunge, opening the first Oasis Day Spa with a handful of employees and himself playing a number of supporting roles in a Union Square locale at a time when that Manhattan neighborhood was not yet tony. The spa would close in 2006, but by then the Park Avenue location was well-established, having opened around Thanksgiving 2001 – in the wake of 9/11 and a spa boom. In 2002, Oasis Day Spa was Crain’s New York Business’ “Small Business of the Year.”
There would be Oasis Day Spas at the now-defunct Affinia Dumont Hotel in Manhattan and at the original Jet Blue terminal at JFK International Airport in Queens, the latter “demonstrating to the airline industry that it was a viable business,” Schoenberg said.
Photographs courtesy Oasis Day Spa/Enormous Creative.
Today, he is part of a $105 billion industry and his two locations – the Park Avenue flagship and the one that opened in 2008 at Rivertowns Square, a retail-residential-entertainment complex off the Saw Mill River Parkway – are among the 181,175 spas worldwide. The Park Avenue facility is a 7,400-square-foot space with 20 treatment rooms. The Dobbs Ferry location is 6,400 square feet, with 16 treatment rooms, a relaxation lounge and an event space, as well as a 2,000-square-foot terrace with a treatment area. It’s also used for events like the annual Sunset Social at the end of summer. Both spas, done in earth tones with soothing music wafting through the rooms, offer an array of massages, reflexology, scalp treatments, facials, chemical peels, body scrubs and waxing as well as more high-tech treatments like microcurrent firming and Celluma Light Therapy. Through February, the spa has three Valentine’s Day-themed specials – a Chocolate Indulgence massage, a Honey Bunny Scrub & Wrap and a Perfect Pout Hydrafacial.
Schoenberg said his spas are moving slowly into the two biggest trends in the spa industry today – wellness, incorporating such healing arts as reiki; and AI. A believer in checking out the competition, Schoenberg said some spas are using robotic aestheticians and masseurs, which he said lack the personal touch that Oasis Day Spa cultivates.
“The aestheticians and therapists talk with you one-on-one,” Schoenberg said of his team, which includes 107 employees. “That’s one of the things I’m proud of.”
Indeed, during our Signature Facial with Joan Gordon, a former art and middle school teacher-turned-aesthetician, we had a conversation that ranged from education to aesthetics and spa products. (Oasis Day Spa uses the G.M Collin, Elemis and Eminence Organic brands, which are also sold in the reception area, along with a variety of soaps, hand creams and candles.)
“We’re here to develop relationships,” Schoenberg added. “Nothing replaces the human touch.”
For more, including the special Valentine’s Day promotions that Oasis Day Spa is offering Monday, Feb. 5 through Feb. 14, visit oasiswestchester.com and oasisdayspanyc.com. Oasis Day Spa will also be part of the International Beauty Show (IBS) March 3 through 5 at the Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. For more on that, click here.
