Spa

BEDFORD, Pa. - You expect, when you're getting services in a classic spa, to be able to step into a steam room, a pool, a hot tub, maybe a pair of spa slippers. In Bedford Springs, you also step into history. Not that you go to a spa for a historic encounter - you go for a rub, not to rub elbows with spa guests of the past. But Bedford Springs, about a 3 1/2-hour drive west from Philadelphia, just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is as much about the past as it is about its restoration to a new, serene present.

You're sitting on the edge of a swimming pool so blue, you imagine you're in the Caribbean. The vivid flowers and aquatic plantings surrounding this pool are so spectacular, they rival those found near Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Now, you close your eyes and savor a meal so satisfying you'd swear you were in Paris. All this after a pedicure so perfect, a facial so cleansing and a massage so soothing, you think maybe you've just died and gone to . . . Atlantic City?

When I saw the look on my daughter Cheryl's face last September at the final Phillies game at the Vet, I decided then and there to surprise her with a weekend of spring training games in Clearwater, Fla. Until two years ago, she didn't know a fly ball from a flyswatter; what little interest she had in baseball came from my association with the Phillies (for 18 years I have worked for the team as an advertising consultant) and from her younger brother, who had plastered his bedroom walls with Larry Bowa posters.

Metro Commercial Real Estate Inc. has negotiated a lease for 1,400 square feet at Springwater Plaza in Glen Mills. The space will be leased by L'Image Femme, a health and beauty spa. Robert Lail, Delaware County retail specialist for Metro Commercial, said 70 percent of the 30,000 square-foot shopping center had been leased. Metro Commercial, the agent for Springwater Plaza, has offices in Plymouth Meeting and Cherry Hill. The firm specializes in retail and commercial brokerage.

A couple has proposed converting a turn-of-the-century Victorian home in Tredyffrin Township into a health and beauty spa specializing in "a new concept of fitness. " A slight revision to the proposed parking plan for the spa, on Darby Road bordering the nearly completed Chestnut Village Shops retail center, was reviewed by the township Zoning Hearing Board Thursday night. The plan for the spa, to be called Antoinette, had received preliminary approval by the Planning Commission earlier this year but will need to be resubmitted because the owners said they could no longer locate the parking in the site originally proposed.

Schools closed for the day. Businesses shuttered. No sales in stores in major malls. No justice in the courts. No tourists at the Liberty Bell. No trains, no buses, and no chance for Monday's late-afternoon seminar on "Airbrush Bridal Makeup. " "She begins with an eyebrow shaping service using only tweezers, scissors, eye shadow and blush," read the description of the seminar, set for 4:30 p.m. Monday at the Convention Center. Organizers of the Aesthetics Expo: International Congress of Esthetics and Spa decided Sunday to cancel events Monday, the final day of its three-day convention, disappointing 3,000 attendees and stranding some exhibitors.

I recently returned from a first visit to a spa, and it was just as I had fantasized. No telephones, no deadlines, just lots of time - time to be pampered and to pamper myself. A massage, a facial, peaceful yoga sessions and revitalizing stretch classes filled each day. All this and good food, too. Eleanor Brown, the menu consultant at the Oaks at Ojai, developed many of the recipes at this comfortable, friendly spa in the scenic foothills of California. Although the daily menu selections were lean - only 1,000 calories - the food was well-prepared and tasty.

Back in the days of water beds and expanding consciousnesses, hot tubs were the quintessential symbol of the California hedonistic lifestyle. Dropped out, laid back, and soaked. But a decade or so ago, hot tubs headed East. Along the way, the big redwood vats that sometimes turned the water cypress-colored and reminded people of paganistic grape-stomping rituals went through a metamorphosis. They got fiberglass liners. They became kidney-shaped, and oval, and square. They were fitted with pulsating options called the Rejuvenator Seat and the Neck-Blaster.

Is your busy mom so no-frills her "facial" consists of a dollop of Noxzema and a wet washcloth? Does your harried wife equate the word "pamper" only with a diaper change for your newborn? Is your sister's idea of relaxation the 10 minutes between rushing from her job and arriving at the day-care center? If so, forget the Hallmark card, the flowers, the $40 bottle of cologne and that 100 percent cotton terry cloth robe from J.C. Penney this Mother's Day. These women need real help.

When Sandy Matheson does aerobic exercises, her face glows like a stop sign. And when she gets down on the floor for various stretching and twisting exercises, she feels somewhat uneasy. "I don't mind women seeing me that way, but I don't want men to," said Matheson, 41, of Washington Crossing. Eighteen months ago she joined the LivingWell Lady fitness club in the Lincoln Plaza Shopping Center in Langhorne because it is an all-female facility. "I like men. I'm just not comfortable exercising with them," she said, pausing from her workout the other day at the gym with its mauve rug and cream-colored exercise machines.

Virtua, the biggest health system in South Jersey, is opening its second spa this month, at its new health and wellness center in Moorestown. Called "vir tú" and offering services such as facials, massages, and even audio therapy, the spas are at the extreme end of Virtua's effort to focus more on keeping the population it serves healthy and less on taking care of people after they get sick. "Part of disease management is stress management as well. It's part of experimentation," Richard P. Miller, president and chief executive of Virtua, said of the for-profit spas.

Schools closed for the day. Businesses shuttered. No sales in stores in major malls. No justice in the courts. No tourists at the Liberty Bell. No trains, no buses, and no chance for Monday's late-afternoon seminar on "Airbrush Bridal Makeup. " "She begins with an eyebrow shaping service using only tweezers, scissors, eye shadow and blush," read the description of the seminar, set for 4:30 p.m. Monday at the Convention Center. Organizers of the Aesthetics Expo: International Congress of Esthetics and Spa decided Sunday to cancel events Monday, the final day of its three-day convention, disappointing 3,000 attendees and stranding some exhibitors.

MILWAUKEE - A Wisconsin man terrorized his wife for years, threatening to throw acid on her face, dousing her car with tomato juice, and slashing her vehicle's, tires before finally going to the spa where she worked, opening fire, and killing her and two others. The shooting spree stunned the middle- to upper-class Milwaukee suburb where it occurred Sunday, but court records show the conflict between Radcliffe Haughton and his wife had been escalating for years. The 45-year-old former car salesman ultimately shot seven women at the Brookfield spa before turning the gun on himself, taking his own life.

AWISCONSIN man who had been accused of domestic violence and slashing his wife's tires took a gun into the spa where she worked Sunday and shot seven women, three fatally, before killing himself, police said. The shootings set off a six-hour search for the gunman that locked down a nearby mall, a country club adjacent to the spa and the hospital where the survivors were taken. The search froze activity in a commercial area in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class community west of Milwaukee, for much of the day. Ultimately, he was found dead in the spa. Authorities said it would take time to sort out exactly what happened, and emphasized they were still interviewing witnesses and rescuers.

BROOKFIELD, Wis. - A man police suspected of killing three and wounding four by opening fire at a tranquil day spa was found dead Sunday afternoon following a six-hour manhunt that locked down a shopping center, country club and hospital in suburban Milwaukee. Authorities said they believed the shooting was related to a domestic dispute. The man they identified as the suspect, Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, of Brown Deer, had a restraining order against him. Brookfield Police Chief Dan Tushaus said Haughton died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was found in the spa. Authorities initially believed Haughton had fled and spent much of Sunday looking for him. The shooting happened about 11 a.m. at the Azana Day Spa, a two-story, 9,000-square-foot building across from a major shopping mall in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class community west of Milwaukee.

Pennsylvania Health Department workers visited Monarch Med Spa in King of Prussia on Monday, the company said, but have not issued findings from the visit. Monarch's locations there and in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Greenville, Del., are being investigated after Maryland last week closed its other facility, in Timonium, north of Baltimore. The closure followed invasive group A streptococcus (GAS) infections in three women, one of them fatal, who underwent liposuction there. A Delaware Health Division spokeswoman said Monday that it had confirmed invasive GAS in one resident, no longer hospitalized, who had "a surgical" procedure at a Monarch location in Pennsylvania.

Investigations into the cause of bacterial infections that killed one woman and hospitalized two others after liposuction procedures in Maryland have spilled into Pennsylvania and Delaware, with authorities Friday advising customers of Monarch Med Spas that they might have been exposed. Maryland health officials shut down the cosmetic-surgery center in Timonium, north of Baltimore, on Wednesday after an inspection raised concerns about infection-control procedures. Monarch's other four centers are in Philadelphia, King of Prussia, Harrisburg, and Greenville, Del. The Pennsylvania and Delaware health departments urged people who underwent procedures and have fever, infection, or prolonged redness of the wound site to contact their health providers.

THE CLIENT LIST. 10 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime. WHAT DO women really want? According to Lifetime, it's more of Jennifer Love Hewitt, rubbing men the right way. On Sunday - because nothing says Easter like a hot chick who gives "happy ending" massages - the television-for-women network adds the series "The Client List," produced by and starring Hewitt as a strapped Texas homemaker who's willing to try just about anything to keep...

headline: Thanks The Daily News would like to thank the magical hands at Bernard's Salon and Spa for providing hair and makeup services for most of the Sexy Singles. A special shout-out also to goes to the staff at MB & Associates for their coordination assistance. What would we do without our Sexy Singles team? This year's layout has a City to Shore theme, which we photographed at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City.