The foundation of the Gentlemen's Pool House was laid in 1761, in the era when Bath County was still wilderness and the colonial Virginia frontier had only just settled enough to support resort architecture. The octagonal shape was unusual but not arbitrary - it allowed the wooden structure to enclose a circular pool with a regular geometry while making the most efficient use of timber. The wooden structure on top of the pool, the one that visitors see today, was first constructed in the 1820s. It has been rebuilt and repaired many times, but the basic form has not changed. The interior is open to the sky - the building is essentially a wooden ring around the pool, with a roof that admits light and lets steam rise out. Modesty was preserved by the walls; ventilation was supplied by the openness.

The Ladies' Pool House came along 75 years later, in 1836. Its 22-sided shape - nearly circular but not quite - reflected the same desire to make a wooden structure enclose a round pool, but with more sides for a smoother curve. By the 1830s, the spa business at Warm Springs had grown enough to justify a dedicated facility for women, and the social conventions of antebellum Virginia required strict separation of the sexes. The mineral chemistry of the women's pool was the same as the men's: magnesium sulfate, iron, silica, boron, barium, manganese, lithium. The water was the same 98 degrees. The architectural distinction was for human reasons, not geological ones.

Thomas Jefferson visited the Warm Springs Pools in 1818 - a 75-year-old former president seeking relief from a rheumatic ailment. He stayed three weeks, bathed three times a day, and complained in letters that the cure was worse than the disease, because the prolonged immersion left him weak and chilled. The Jefferson connection later prompted the 20th-century rebranding of the pools as the "Jefferson Pools," a name that stuck for decades until 2021, when the original "Warm Springs Pools" was restored. Other famous bathers across the centuries include the long parade of antebellum politicians, planters, and military officers who passed through Bath County in the summer. The 19th-century Virginia spa circuit - White Sulphur Springs, Warm Springs, Hot Springs, and a dozen others - functioned as both health resort and political networking ground.

The buildings finally caught up with their age. Two and a half centuries of steam, mineral-saturated water, and untreated wood took their toll. In October 2017, Bath County ordered the pool houses closed as a safety hazard - the kind of structural decision that small county officials hate to make about a National Register property but cannot avoid when timbers begin to fail. The Omni Homestead Resort, which owns the pools, announced a rehabilitation. Work began in 2021, with the architectural firm 3North and the contractor Lionberger Construction. The rebuild followed the historic-registration requirements precisely. Blueprints for the new design were based on photographs and documents showing the pool houses as they appeared in 1925. The pools reopened on December 17, 2022. The water, as always, was waiting.

Today the Homestead offers one-hour soaking sessions for guests and day visitors. Family sessions welcome all ages, including children. Adult co-ed soaks run for those 16 and up. Following the original 18th- and 19th-century tradition, clothing-optional times are available when the pools are separated by sex - a small concession to history that lets the pools function the way they did when Jefferson visited. The buildings on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places are functioning spas, not museums. People still wade into water that flowed through the same opening when George Washington was a young surveyor. There are very few places left in the United States where a 1761 wooden structure is still used for its original purpose by paying customers. The Warm Springs Pools are one of them.