Nordvest Stories: Anne and building a community for the active at Heat Harmony

Nordvest Stories: Anne and building a community for the active at Heat Harmony

We meet on a Wednesday just after noon — a last-minute slot that opened in Anne’s schedule, and by luck I am working from home and can step out for an hour. We had tried to plan something earlier, but coordinating with Anne is its own reflection of who she is: always moving, always balancing several worlds at once.

We had originally thought we’d sit outside by the saunas at Heat Harmony, but the cold made that impossible. Instead, we walk together to a small nearby space they have access to - warm enough to talk, quiet enough to focus.

It’s a simple setup: a kitchen, a table, a few chairs, and a bit of early afternoon light. The solution feels like Anne — thinking on her feet, moving quickly, adjusting on the fly, and making the most of whatever space is available.

Past

When I ask Anne how she ended up building Heat Harmony, she laughs for a second — not because she doesn’t know, but because there are so many beginnings to the story.

Anne says she has always had an entrepreneurial streak. Before Heat Harmony, there was both a personal training business and a vegan ice-cream company. She describes these ventures almost casually, like chapters she lived fully and then moved beyond. Then came pregnancy and COVID, then another pregnancy. Life stacked itself in layers, and suddenly she was in a different season — one that required stability more than reinvention. She took an HR specialist job and built a predictable rhythm: work from 9 to 5, pick up the kids, be a mom.

But the urge to build something of her own again never disappeared. “I always had this hunger to be my own boss again,” she says. After a divorce, she felt the space - and the need - to construct a “version 2.0” of herself, as she puts it.

Around the same time, she and her now co-founder, Frederik, were strengthening their friendship, often through the running communities they were both part of. “We had started going a lot to saunagus together,” she says. Session after session, she saw the same thing: everything was fully booked. To get in, you had to plan a week out.

With 15 years of active lifestyle behind her — running, community-building, coaching — Anne saw a clear gap: a sauna space built for people who train, where recovery comes first and mental calm follows naturally. “There should be a place more […] for active people, […] for restitution,” she says. “There was space for something more active, more community-driven.”

She also had a built-in network. After years in the social running scene, Anne knew most people already. For her, it felt natural to go out and say, “I’m starting this place — come and join.” But beyond that, she understood something deeper: the human need to belong. “I’ve been part of communities myself, so I know how important it is for people to actually feel like they’re part of something.” Heat Harmony would be community-first from day one.

That running background is still visible today. Every Friday morning, Heat Harmony hosts the Heat Run — a social run that brings people together before the workday begins and ends at the sauna. It’s not about pace or performance, but about showing up, moving together, and starting the weekend as a group. For Anne, it’s another example of how Heat Harmony was never meant to be just a place you visit, but something you take part in.

Looking at different places to open the sauna, a connection suggested an original idea: a forgotten private parking lot in Nordvest.

“In the beginning, I was a little bit scared,” Anne admits. Being very far from what they initially envisioned and from Østerbro. But now she laughs at that early hesitation. “I have been falling so much in love with this area. I can't believe there would be a better fit for us”.

Heat Harmony opened its permanent sauna doors on November 4th - after one of the fastest project timelines Anne has ever worked through. “I don't think we actually slept that week,” she says, recalling the days before their first pop-up event. "I think we were crazy but we made the right decision for sure" she adds. "Luckily you don't know how much work there is in running your own business, because I don't think many people would do it."

They launched with one sauna meant for 20 people. And luckily, Anne says, the sauna was really terrible, which means they quickly learned everything was wrong: the floor, the door, the oven, the windows. A valuable lesson for their next purchase.

They needed another sauna quite rapidly and at that point "The demand was just so huge, so it was very clear for both of us, of course we should buy two new saunas." They also switched from wood-fired to electric — for reliability, air-flow issues, but also after receiving feedback from neighbors about smoke. “We took those complaints seriously.”

Their very first public appearance - a pop-up after the Copenhagen Half Marathon 2024 at Autopoul, also in Nordvest - turned out to be a turning point. Anne feels so lucky about that event. They came out with the name and the app at the event and “people were just tapping into our app, signing up, adding a profile, and then booking their session for free at Autopoul." Looking back, that was the best decision they could have made, and this event also taught them a lot.

Present

Today, Anne still works four days a week in HR. Heat Harmony still fills the rest — evenings, Wednesdays, weekends. Anne and Frederik, co-founder of Heat Harmony make all their decisions jointly. Operationally, Anne trains facilitators, runs events, manages the app, handles salaries and budgets, and keeps the bigger picture moving forward while her co-founder, Frederik, mainly takes care of the day-to-day operations onsite. They of course pitch in whenever needed in the other’s responsibilities.

The division of labor happened naturally. Anne describes herself as a “red” person — fast-paced, decisive, happiest when things move. “To lead, make decisions, have a strategy ready — it’s very easy for me,” she says. “If I come up with an idea today, I would love it if it’s out in the world tomorrow.”

Frederik is the opposite: steadier, grounding, slower. “He’s more like, ‘Let’s take it a little more easy,’” Anne says. “And he leans into my energy.”

It works because they’re different, and because they trust each other — each picking up whatever arises in a business where surprises are constant.

Neither Anne nor Frederik lives in Nordvest; both are based in the inner city. Before Heat Harmony, Anne mainly passed through the neighborhood on her runs around Utterslev Mose. But the area grew on her quickly.

She first describes Nordvest as “a little bit of a mystery” — a place that feels unknown to many people, “down to earth,” full of corners where “nice magical things” can happen. And then, as she spends more time here, another layer comes out: “I can really see that things are building up out here right now. [...] People are very creative. There are so many events.”

It’s also a place where the guest profile fits naturally: students and young professionals 20s to 30s who live active lives and spend money on health, recovery, and taking care of themselves. “That’s our primary customer,” she says.

Heat Harmony itself has helped reshape the courtyard where it sits. What began as an unused private parking lot has slowly turned into what Anne calls “a little town within the town” — a raw, industrial space with a surprising sense of openness, something she says would be impossible to recreate in most other parts of Copenhagen.

When I ask about her favorite places in the area, she lists them easily: Rødder, where she often has lunch or meetings, Flere Fugle, for its atmosphere, or Thoravej 29 - “the building is so beautiful,” she says. She also looks forward to trying the soon-to-open wine bar on Rentemestervej.

We laugh about how much she still has left to discover — and joke how she’ll get to all of it once she eventually lives in the neighborhood.

As for the idea that Nordvest is far - Anne shakes her head. People living in Amager sometimes say Heat Harmony is too far away, she admits, but everyone else? "Easy,” she says.

That sense of closeness shows up in small, everyday ways. Some guests who live nearby arrive directly from home in their bathrobes, walking through the neighborhood before stepping into the heat. It’s a detail Anne loves — a sign that Heat Harmony isn’t a destination you travel to, but something that belongs naturally in people’s routines.

Future

Anne and Frederik are far from finished. “We have a pop-up in Humlebæk right now,” she tells me (back in November) — a collaboration that grew unexpectedly from a customer reaching out, asking if Heat Harmony could help activate a long-dormant sauna space. The new pop-up in Osterbro has also now been running since early January and will continue until end of March. Anne and Frederik and looking at and open to testing different formats, different neighborhoods, different rhythms.

More permanent Copenhagen locations are also on the horizon, though Anne smiles and keeps the details to herself for now. “When it’s not finalized, I like to keep it a little close to myself,” she says.

Longer term, she imagines building something that remains high-quality and community-driven - and one day, who knows, maybe stepping back enough that the business can run without her daily involvement.

Anne’s life is full in every direction: an 80% HR job, two young children, a fast-growing sauna business, facilitator training, brand collaborations, and the momentum she naturally brings into everything she touches.

At one point, I ask - half-joking - if she ever naps. “Once in a while, when I actually have time,” she laughs. She tells me about the “coffee nap” she learned on a recent trip: drink a coffee, nap for exactly 22 minutes, wake up recharged. It sounds absurd, but she swears by it.

Her real secret though? “Prioritizing time correctly,” she says. “When I have my kids, I prioritize being with them, and then I have to work when they are asleep.”

We leave our interview spot, and walk back to Heat Harmony. Looking around at the space that will open in a few hours, I know that what Anne has built is more than a wellness concept. It's a small ecosystem. A place shaped by movement and momentum, by someone who thinks big, builds fast, and creates a space that brings people together.

A little magic zone in a corner of Nordvest she once wasn’t sure about — and now can’t imagine leaving.