Christianna Claghorn

Christianna Claghorn says it was her experience living in Venezuela and attending international school as a teenager that opened her mind to new perspectives. Her father was in agriculture and poultry, which took her family from a small farm in Pennsylvania to Athens, Georgia, before they relocated to South America. Once back stateside, she joined her brother in Provo, attending Utah Valley University and working at a small airport surrounded by miles of alfalfa fields.

While raising two children, she followed her passion for skincare to earn a 1,200-hour Master Esthetician certification attending classes at night. When the St. Regis Deer Valley Resort in Park City announced plans to open, Christianna joined the inaugural spa team at the renowned property. There, she worked with celebrity clientele and led an esthetics team in maintaining five-star standards—not only in facilities and treatments but also in the more nuanced aspects of customization and anticipatory service. Drawn to management and open to new opportunities, she jumped at the chance to join the prestigious St. Regis Princeville on the island of Kauai, Hawaii, when a former colleague invited her to become Spa Manager.

That role ultimately led her to the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea on the island of Maui, where she spent six years serving first as Spa Manager and then Director of Spa and Fitness. With about 15,000 square feet of state-of-the-art treatment space, the Willow Stream Spa there was recognized by Travel and Leisure as the Best Hotel Spa in Hawaii, and Christianna’s staff was honored with Best Team recognition from the World Spa and Wellness Awards, among other accolades.

While that footprint is similar in size to The Spa at Southall, unique elements drew her to the role of Spa Director here, including the way the facility incorporates the outdoors in meaningful ways—the mineral pool, treatment products that connect guests with what’s growing on the property, and the central role the apiary and millions of bees play in the wellness of the land and its inhabitants. Inside, she’s excited about the Himalayan salt sauna and the benefits of air-cleansing halotherapy.

Most importantly, Christianna is inspired by the ohana she felt from the first interaction with the Southall team, a sense of family and life-connecting energy that people crave in a post-pandemic world. The genuine focus on caring for the whole-body wellness of both the guests and the staff is rare, and those values spoke to her in a way that prompted another challenging cross-country move.

Two decades into a career that reaches deep into the very essence of life, she’s realized that discovery is most often found outside the comfort zone. It’s an example she wants to set for her children, for the spa and wellness team she’s cultivating, and for the guests seeking something beyond the status quo at Southall.