The Whiting Sanitarium, the last spa to be built in Martinsville, was located at the corner of West Harrison and Mulberry Streets. It occupied a house known as the Nutter House, a private residence dating back to 1895 previously owned by Albert and Charlotte Lottie Nutter. Dr. Ulysses Grant Whiting and his wife Lula Wasson Whiting purchased the house in January 1920 from Mr. and Mrs. Ed Smith with plans to convert it into a sanitarium.

     The Whitings hired workers to drill a well on their West Harrison Street property in March of that year but ran out of money before mineral water was reached. The house and well stood dormant for three years while Dr. Whiting returned to his medical practice. Well drilling resumed at the site in spring of 1923, when demand for sanitarium services and hotel rooms was high. Additional construction on the north and east sides of the Whiting house took over a year to complete, but the Whiting Sanitarium finally opened in 1924.

     The three-story building, one of the city s smallest spas, had 45 guest rooms and was heated by a vacuum heating system with individual controls in each guest room. The spa also contained an electric elevator, front and back stairways, and a bright kitchen with the latest equipment, including a steam table, dish warming closets, ranges, dish washer, ice box, and pantry. The spa s services, ranging from $21 to $28 per week in 1929, included hydrotherapy, electrotherapy, and diagnostic laboratories. The hydrotherapy utilizing the town's mineral water was accessible in enormous bath rooms, decorated with white enamel tiles and furnished with cots overlaid with rubber sheets and pillows. The bath rooms featured bath tubs, showers, vapor, sprays, and saunas.

     Following the stock market crash, the Whiting experienced a downturn in business. In December 1932 Dr. U.G. Whiting died at the sanitarium. The Whitings continued to operate the spa, with U.G. and Lula Whitings' daughter Faye and her husband, Emory Smith, acting as managers during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1947 Lula Whiting sold the sanitarium to Dr. David A. Eisenberg. A small fire claimed part of the Whiting Sanitarium in 1948, and Dr. Eisenberg repaired the spa and continued to run the business. Another fire claimed the entire structure during the evening of October 10, 1949. Dr. Eisenberg and his colleague Dr. Leon Gray were in surgery at the hospital, then located on Main Street, when Eisenberg noticed smoke coming from the direction of the Whiting. The doctors could not leave their anesthetized patient, and by the time Eisenberg was able to arrive on the scene, the fire department had already been called, but the structure was completely lost. At the time of writing, a brick apartment building stands on the site.