KOHLER, Wis. — I’m no Julia Roberts, but surrounded by bath bubbles in a state-of-the-art whirlpool, I felt a little like the pretty woman. It’s easy to get carried away while bathing at the American ...

There is something about water that invites poetry, borrowed phrases from wiser minds, myth-making, introspection, submersion in the mystical side of life. A spa, at its barest self, is that: A ...