As I read Spirit, Wind & Water, I felt as if I was sitting around the kitchen table with members of the Jacuzzi family, listening to them tell their stories without embellishment and analysis. And what a story! Starting with the grandparents’ and parents’ life in Italy, to the family’s gradual immigration to California, this story covers the inventions and entrepreneurship of the Jacuzzi brothers and their families: the risks, the tragedies, the growth and international successes, the loves, the disappointments, the lifestyles, the family disagreements, and finally, the sale of their namesake company. Remo Jacuzzi concludes with his own family’s story and the growth of his own hydrotherapy spa company, Jason (JAcuzziSON) International.

Mr. Jacuzzi has an interesting writing style. His engineering background is apparent by his ability to put over a century’s worth of many, many people and events together coherently. By doing this, he achieves the goal of any engineer: he dissects how his family works. Yet he adds quick personal family insights that color in the details, suddenly creating a vivid scene. At one point, Mr. Jacuzzi describes his Ma’s garden with a grocery list of flowers that were grown in it. But then he throws in “a statue of the Virgin Mary overlooked Ma’s rose garden” and suddenly, I knew exactly what the garden looked like.
– Carol Booth