Day spa seeks to heal mind, body and spirit
Gentle Healing in Cranbury to hold open house Dec. 6
BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer
The quote "Who looks outside, Dreams. Who looks inside, Awakes," by Carl Jung, is painted on an archway inside the new Gentle Healing Wellness Spa Educational Center.

The Gentle Healing Wellness Spa offers a private room with a fireplace, a piano and couches for patrons to relax between their massage and spa treatments.

This is the exact message owner Donda Sternberg wants to portray at her health spa and massage clinic, located on South River Road in Cranbury.

Sternberg, a resident of South Brunswick, has been in the industry for 24 years. She started as an aesthetician and went to cosmetology school, looking for a career that would fit her lifestyle as a single mom.

In 1991 she opened a small business in New Brunswick that offered massages and facials and then in 1996 opened a massage school.

After renting space in a medical building on Prospect Plains Road in 1999, she decided to knock on the door of a beautiful Victorian home she had often passed off Route 535 and let the owners know that if they were ever interested in selling the house, she would be interested in buying.

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff

Sternberg said that one week later, the Stasi family called her and offered her the historic building because they did not like the buildup of industry around the property, which used to be all cornfields.

So, in 2001, she purchased the site of her current spa location, a house that was built in 1853 and is "a very homey environment, very quiet."

She has taken the 4,400- square-foot house and converted the living quarters into spa service rooms for hydrotherapy, facials, massages, body treatments, and manicures and pedicures.

Sternberg purchased furniture from garage and estate sales, so that the antiques could blend with the décor of the original house. Yet the house still has its original layout, doors, floors, staircase, and medallions hanging from the ceiling.

One of the front rooms is now a parlor, complete with a piano, fireplace, couches, and tables and chairs to allow clients to have a cup of tea "and just relax" between treatments. The dining area is now a manicure and pedicure room.

Upstairs, the original bedrooms of the Stasis' three daughters and an old sewing room have been converted into steam rooms, skin-care areas and massage rooms. There is a cubby facing a window to allow for relaxation and a foot massage between treatments, and an original full bathroom remains intact and in use.

Downstairs, the former garage that was added to the house in the 1900s is now a skin-care room.

The former kitchen is now the waiting area, complete with a full gift boutique of products that are used in most of the services. There are clothes, CDs, skin-care lines, cherry massage stones, socks and robes, soaps, body lotions and hand creams.

There are also outdoor patios and a gazebo for clients to relax during the warmer seasons.

For clients looking to experience the services together, Sternberg holds a date night where couples can get massages together and have champagne and dinner privately in the parlor.

There is a master suite for private parties for up to eight people, but the Suite Retreat building, which Sternberg hopes to have completely renovated by March, will accommodate up to 25 people in a party, with two Jacuzzi tubs and a fireplace.

PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff The Gentle Healing Wellness Spa is located in a historic Victorian home that was built in the 1850s. The original structure, floors, staircase and layout remain, while being converted into various massage, pedicure and spa treatment rooms.

In addition to the spa services, there are also ballroom dancing, hip-hop dancing, belly dancing and yoga classes offered.

Sternberg said she believes education is also important to wellness, so in a new building on the property, there is an accredited Title IV massage school that has 12 certified teachers conducting a 600- hour certified massage program, recognized by the United States Department of Education.

The students, who must have at least a high school diploma but who can be any age, learn polarity, trigger massages, craniosacral therapy, pathology, and myology.

"It's about learning how to deal with soft tissue without just popping a pill," Sternberg said.

There is also a library, which is open to the public, where spa patrons can sit and relax while reading a variety of self-help books or examining their spirituality.

"A spa is something that gets you in touch with your body and your mind and your spirit. It's really about an awakening," said Sternberg, who has a degree in world religions. "A salon is for beautifying; a spa is created for awakening."

With a background in homeopathy and natural medicine, Sternberg said there is a therapeutic benefit to spa services in addition to the relaxation techniques.

"There is no avoiding stress. We're born with stress. The minute we come through the birth canal, there is stress … but the way we decide to deal with it and the way we learn to cope with it [is important.] There is no way to eliminate stress," she said.

She said she is trying to create a business and an environment that is "open to the mainstream" so that "these three buildings are just about accepting who you are."

In the near future, she is looking forward to the completion of the Suite Retreat and to the creation of a labyrinth in front of the building for guests to walk through in a meditative environment.

"I want to establish a place where people learn they have choices," she said.

To introduce prospective clients to the spa, Sternberg will host an open house from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, featuring a tour of the new educational center, a fashion show, belly dancing, yoga, chair massages and self-help lectures. There will be gifts and door prizes, including spa gift certificates.

Gentle Healing is located at 1274 South River Road, also called Route 535/Cranbury Road.

The spa is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

For more information, visit www.GentleHealingSpa.com or www.GentleHealingSchool.com or call 609-409-2700.

Contact Jennifer Amato at

jamato@gmnews.com.