Beverly Hot Springs
Loading...Small Korean spa offering massages and facials.
Mon 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Tue reserved for private bookings
Wed 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Thu 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Fri 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Sat 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Sun 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
BHS Spa claims to be the only natural geothermal hot spring in Los Angeles, drawing mineral-rich water from the historic Oxford Springs artesian well discovered in 1910. It appears to be the only commercial spa facility within the city limits of Los Angeles that uses naturally occurring geothermal water from an on-site artesian well.
The “natural artesian well” at Beverly Hot Springs isn’t some pristine underground spring in the romantic sense though. It’s actually a byproduct of oil exploration that was later repurposed for commercial use.
In 1910, a real estate developer named Richard S. Grant bought the land, which was then a wheat field near Beverly and Western, intending to subdivide it for housing . While drilling, he discovered the artesian well that would become Oxford Springs. This wasn’t a surface spring bubbling up naturally; it was water encountered during deep drilling, likely related to the same geological formations that created the massive Los Angeles City Oil Field just a mile north.
The well produced 250,000 gallons of 96-105°F mineral water daily and became a local utility, supplying residents’ hot water needs until the city installed water mains in 1915 . The water was later bottled as “Wonder Water” under the Angelus Club label.
Why is it in a strip mall?
The current Beverly Hot Springs facility, opened in 1984 by Korean immigrants Yang Cha Kim and Chang Bum Huh, was built over this existing well infrastructure. The well itself had been covered by a “shabby warehouse used for water-bottling” before the spa development. The building at 308 N. Oxford Avenue is a converted commercial structure tucked behind nondescript shops, with the well pipe now supposedly sharing a basement storage room with “boxes of soap and stacks of towels.”
