Million-dollar makeover

D Magazine, Jan 01, 1999

IT IS BRIGHT AND EARLY AT GREENHOUSE. The sun filters through the white latticed atrium onto a dozen silver-haired women sitting poolside. Dressed in their black tights, leotards, and baggy boxer shorts (the Greenhouse uniform), the ladies wait posture-perfect on their exercise mats for athletic director Marsha Taplett's lecture on fitness to begin. But because this is The Greenhouse, Taplett's "lecture" is actually more of a chat and "fitness" is a highly subjective term.

Standing before her circle of eager matrons, Taplett has the look and build of the kind of hard-bodied track stars you see in Nike ads. A fitness specialist who trained at the Cooper Clinic, she is certified to teach everything from biomechanics to aquatics. She left the thong-worthy Signature Athletic Club in Far North Dallas for the genteel Greenhouse in 1992, right around the time falling business forced the spa to raise fitness to a respectable level. Still, employing someone like Taplett as athletic director at The Greenhouse seems a little like employing a nutritionist at McDonald's.

Taplett has accepted the fact that most of her expertise is superfluous at this hothouse orchid of a spa that carries the curious distinction of being located in both Grand Prairie and Arlington. (One city begins where the other leaves off along an invisible line that divides the spa in two.) The average guest, between 45 and 65 years of age, has the fitness level of an Elizabeth Taylor or a Nancy Reagan, both of whom have stayed at The Greenhouse. Taplett has been only mildly successful in her attempt to introduce cutting edge. For a long time, tai chi was considered too New Age; kick-boxing was too strenuous. Now, The Greenhouse offers both, though Taplett has yet to fill a class in either.

Which explains why she keeps her lecture/chat beginner-level basic ("As we move through life, we lose flexibility if we don't stretch...."). But that's the difference between The Greenhouse and the other spas that regularly make the top-spa lists: Until recently, The Greenhouse didn't care about the thonged or even the marginally fit, preferring instead to build its fitness philosophy on the premise that ladies don't sweat. Indeed, the ladies sitting poolside have the kind of bearing that suggests a no-sweat life.

"Here, you bring Mrs. Jones water, you bring Mrs. Jones a towel, you listen to Mrs. Jones talk about her grandchildren." says Taplett, who regularly reviews each guest's history and knows who's had hip replacement surgery and who suffers from osteoporosis. "My goal is to give Mrs. Jones what she wants. In her life, she couldn't care less about biceps and calf muscles."

With plenty of the mature well-to-do willing to pay $5,000 a week for the privilege of going without, The Greenhouse hasn't exactly had incentive to change. Let other spas embrace the inner you. Let other spas sweat it out of you. The Greenhouse has always stood as a testament to the notion that there's nothing in life a good facial couldn't make better. Except, of course, old age.

The first sign The Greenhouse was aging less-than-graciously: Women passing out from hunger. In the beginning, guests were allowed 700 calories a day; 500 calories with a note from a doctor. The spa's nutritional philosophy was best summed up in two words: Lacy Toast.

Breakfast, served each morning (in bed), was made up of hot tea and a single slice of Lacy Toast. The Greenhouse signature, which required a special bread slicer to get each piece thin enough, was so named because you could literally read the morning paper through it.

"It wasn't unusual to find someone fainted by the pool," says spa director Shirley Ogle, who has witnessed her share of hungry grown women collapsing into tears when their Lacy Toast, too thin to be handled, crumbled to the floor. "We'd run to the kitchen, get a glass of orange juice, lace it with honey, and give them an 'infusion.' In those days we didn't think about fat, we thought about calories."

Lacy Toast went off the menu 15 years ago, but The Greenhouse held fast to its antiquated notion of well-being--until business began to sag. It wasn't because the spa had an old-fashioned view of health and fitness (although it did). It wasn't because the guests were dying off (although they were). It was the national recession of the early '80s that threatened to render The Greenhouse--which, curiously, has always had more of a national and international, rather than local, appeal-irrelevant. By the time the economy rebounded, the industry had changed: Day spas were offering the same beauty treatments for less, and luxury hotels were adding spa facilities or, in some cases, merging with already established spas.

Last year, taking its cue from Patriot American (the hotel developer that purchased The Golden Door in California) and Crescent Real Estate Equity (which purchased Canyon Ranch in Arizona), The Greenhouse merged with Spa Thira, a day spa known for esoteric skin treatments. What used to be 11 Spa Thiras scattered across the country, including one in Inwood Village, are now Greenhouse Day Spas. The merger gives the day spa more exposure; what it will ultimately mean for the aging matriarch is anyone's guess. The transition hasn't been easy.