The husband-and-wife team of Rick Powell and Behnje Masson have conducted yoga and Tai Chi classes for a decade from a small storefront on East Fulton in Grand Rapids. But now the two are getting clients to relax and rejuvenate at a new expanded From The Heart Yoga Center, 714 Wealthy St. SE.
“Our good friend, Anna Haworth, is our partner in the building,” Powell says. “She’s always wanted to do a development project with someone. When we looked at this building, we fell in love with it.”
Downstairs, guests enter a small retail and registration area. Farther inside are two side-by-side yoga/Tai Chi studios. A collapsible wall opens the space into one 2,800-square-foot studio.
“We’ll push the Tai Chi a little more than we have because we’ve never had a place to let that grow – that’s my first love,” Powell says. He has studied under Tai Chi master Yen Hoa Lee since 1983.
A massage therapy studio will be added this fall. Massage therapist Kim Stinson and shiatsu expert Jock Smith will then relocate from the Fulton Street studio.
Upstairs, two 1,200-square-foot condos share an elevated deck off the back of the building. A spiral staircase leads down to the backyard. Inside, the hardwood floors, high ceilings and reproduction molding give the space an historic feel.
Powell and Masson own one condo; Haworth owns the other.
“I wake every morning feeling like I’m in a five-star hotel,” Powell says. “The clean lines, the light from the window placement and the quality of the craftsmanship are amazing.”
Haworth, an art student at Kendall College of Art and Design, designed most of the building’s interiors. Bazzani Associates handled the construction.
Source: Rick Powell, From The Heart Yoga Center
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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