Twelve individuals quickly set up their mats at various angles within the expansive, yellow-painted space at Abide Yoga at 9 a.m. on an April Sunday morning.
“Think about what makes you feel grounded,” instructor and studio owner Hope Hamling urges at the start of class. She then leads the group through an “Intuitive Yin Flow” session: 75 slow-paced minutes of long-held poses designed to have “a sweet community feel.” It is Hamling’s 10th year owning her Larchmere studio, and she not only encounters this strong sense of grounding in her classes but also in the surrounding streets of the Cleveland neighborhood.
“When I walked down the street 10 years ago and saw the open storefront, I immediately felt that Larchmere was the spot. You can feel the community here,” Hamling says.
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Other communities we spent a day visiting:
Medina Keeps A Small Town Feel Despite City Amenities
Avon Balances Past With Present
Hudson is a Walkable, Family-Friendly Haven
Willoughby is All About Coolness
Rocky River, 2024 top suburb for Cleveland Magazine
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Matthew Chasney (who photographed this piece) agrees. He moved to this East Side neighborhood two years ago to be closer to his children who live with their mother in nearby Cleveland Heights. He loves the quiet of the area, the walkability of the streets, and the plethora of activities for his 13- and 11-year-old children.
“There’s just so much to do here for us,” says Chasney. “We skateboard in the church parking lot, walk the trails by Doan Brook, and, of course, hang out in the bookstore.”
Almost everyone you encounter walking down Larchmere Boulevard, the main commercial artery of the neighborhood, references “the bookstore.”
Located a few storefronts east from Abide, Loganberry Books has been a landmark literary fixture in Cleveland since 1994. Boasting more than 100,000 volumes for visitors to pursue, the shop regularly hosts a who’s who of visiting authors.
RATED: 2024 Cleveland's Top 20 Suburbs by Cleveland Magazine
For Joan Savitt, Loganberry is a must-visit destination to bring her out-of-town friends. On this Sunday, her arms are stacked high with not only books — novels by Kristin Hannah and Geraldine Brooks — but also an art collage and an artistically painted oven mitt. “It feels like a home away from home here,” Savitt says, with this week’s visiting friend standing wide-eyed a few stacks away. “You can’t get the staff’s helpfulness, the quirky items, or this great neighborhood on Amazon.”
Jane Donnell wants to see every empty storefront in Larchmere occupied as successfully as Loganberry. She moved into the neighborhood in 1989, bought her first house in 1992 and her second property in 1998. In those 35 years, she has seen storefronts come and go.
“This neighborhood has such a good spirit that’s
ever-growing,” Donnell says. “If we can get more occupancy and support businesses, we can get more people to see how wonderfully diverse Larchmere is for everyone who
comes here.” That word, “diverse,” has become a hallmark of Larchmere and is referenced by residents and business owners alike.
As a Black business owner, Melissa Garrett had this diversity in mind four years ago when she opened
UnBar Cafe.
“Larchmere has a diverse vibe that I just wanted to be near,” Garrett says.
To keep things fresh, Garrett is constantly evolving the cafe’s offerings, from introducing new drinks — UnBar Feel Better Tea is a lemon-flavored elixir guaranteed to brighten your day — to hosting events like a recent lecture from Stanford University professor of education Adam Banks on the impact of technology on Black culture. “Our motto is ‘Think better. Feel better. Be better.’” Garrett says.
On the western border of Larchmere, Chef Koko Grimes has also felt the neighborhood support of Black business owners. She opened Conveniently Vegan in 2022 as a way of bringing plant-based culinary options to the area, like the wildly popular Sunday brunch buffet featuring tofu scrambles, breakfast eggrolls and the not-to-be-missed sweet potato pound cake.
“There are not a lot of vegan restaurants in Cleveland and my goal is to show you how to eat healthy but eat good,” Grimes says.
The challenge, says Tina Haldiman, is to make sure that visitors stop by this western edge of Larchmere Boulevard as much as they visit the eastern side of the street that houses Loganberry.
Since 2016, Haldiman and partner Cassidy Anderson have owned and lived above Larchmere Fire Works, a glassblowing and blacksmithing studio on the western side of the neighborhood. The newest vice president of the Larchmere Community Association, she cites the community’s refusal to allow a dollar store to move into the neighborhood as an important victory.
“Instead, we have new apartments that improve Larchmere,” Haldiman says. “I love how surprised people are by our neighborhood. We are unexpectedly cute and quaint.”
But perhaps no one is more delighted by Larchmere on that Sunday than 7-year-old Rory. As she holds a blowtorch, closely supervised, to complete her glass creation at Larchmere Fire Works, Rory’s smile is a mile wide. “We drove two hours from Cambridge to come here,” says Lindsey Angler, Rory’s mom. “Driving up and down Larchmere, we’ve had just an awesome day and will definitely come back.”
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