Studio Love Grand Opening Introduces a New Club

Studio Love Grand Opening welcomes the community into a new women-owned Pilates, yoga and social wellness club in Groton on Friday, September 18, with drinks, bites, live music and dancing from 5 to 8 p.m. and an official ribbon cutting at 6 p.m.

But founders Annie Chapman and Maggie Skinner are opening something they hope will be more than another place to squeeze in a workout.

The mother-daughter team has designed Studio Love around Pilates, yoga, meditation and mindful movement, but also around something that can be surprisingly difficult to find in fitness spaces: a place where people actually want to stay.

Their philosophy is summed up in five words:

Love is the root, not the reward.

A Mother and Daughter Build Their Own Studio

Chapman and Skinner aren’t newcomers to the local wellness community.

Both have spent years teaching yoga and Pilates, and Studio Love brings their experience together at 70 Bridge Street in Groton.

Chapman is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher whose training includes 300 hours through the Baptiste Institute and an additional 300 hours of Recovery Yoga training.

Skinner combines yoga and Pilates training, including 300 hours of Baptiste teacher training and comprehensive 800-hour Pilates teacher training. Her background also includes ballet and a particular interest in anatomy.

Now mother and daughter are putting those experiences under one roof.

Studio Love describes the new business as a “love letter to the community that raised us.”

The September 18 grand opening is the community’s first big invitation inside.

The Idea Starts With Changing How People Think About Exercise

Plenty of fitness businesses promise results.

Studio Love is asking people to reconsider what a result actually means.

Its philosophy explicitly rejects exercise as punishment for what someone ate or as a transaction undertaken to earn a different-looking body.

Instead, Chapman and Skinner describe movement as a form of self-care and a way of making your body a more comfortable place to live.

Strength still matters.

So do mobility, balance, endurance and proper technique.

But the goal isn’t to make people feel that the person walking through the door needs to be fixed before beginning.

That distinction influences how Studio Love describes nearly everything it offers.

The studio says its classes are intended for different ages, body shapes, backgrounds and experience levels, including complete beginners and people returning to exercise after time away.

Pilates Goes Beyond the Mat

Pilates will be one of the major pieces of Studio Love.

That includes Reformer Pilates, using the familiar sliding carriage, springs, straps and resistance system that allow exercises to be scaled in dramatically different ways.

A reformer can add resistance to make a movement more challenging.

It can also provide assistance.

That’s one reason Pilates equipment can be useful across such a wide range of experience levels.

Studio Love also incorporates Tower Pilates, expanding the exercise possibilities through spring-loaded equipment and attachment points.

For people who prefer the simplest version, mat Pilates remains part of the program as well.

The emphasis throughout is on controlled movement, alignment, mobility and functional strength rather than simply moving as quickly as possible.

There’s Plenty of Yoga, Too

Yoga at Studio Love ranges from energetic to deliberately slow.

At the more athletic end are heated power and vinyasa-style practices.

Other classes slow things considerably through approaches including slow flow, restorative and yin yoga.

That gives members the ability to choose a practice according to what their body needs that day rather than treating every visit as another maximum-intensity workout.

Some people may come to sweat.

Others may come because they’ve spent eight hours sitting at a desk and would simply like their back to forgive them.

Both belong.

Meditation and Breathwork Are Part of the Club

Studio Love’s definition of wellness extends beyond exercise.

Meditation, breathwork and other mindful practices are incorporated alongside Pilates and yoga.

Workshops and specialty programming can take that further, with the studio planning experiences such as Yoga Nidra, sound-focused practices, guest instruction and educational workshops.

Studio Love has also connected with Heartfulness, an international nonprofit meditation organization, to help interested members access complimentary Heartfulness Meditation experiences with trainers.

It’s another indication that the word “wellness” isn’t being used simply as a fashionable substitute for “fitness.”

The studio is trying to create a broader practice.

Why Call It a Social Wellness Club?

This may be the most interesting part of Studio Love.

Chapman and Skinner don’t want everyone grabbing their keys and disappearing the moment class ends.

The space is intentionally designed to let people linger.

Have some tea.

Refill a water bottle.

Answer an email.

Talk to the person you’ve been practicing next to for the past month.

Sit for a few minutes before returning to the rest of the day.

Complimentary tea and filtered water are part of the experience, along with small touches such as infused water and cool lavender cloths following hot classes.

The idea is to create some of the social connection that can disappear when exercise becomes another appointment to complete as efficiently as possible.

That’s where the “social wellness club” description comes from.

The class is only part of the reason to walk through the door.

Beginners Get Their Own Starting Point

Boutique fitness can be intimidating.

Everyone else appears to know where to stand.

They understand the equipment.

They know the terminology.

And you’re quietly trying to figure out which way the mat goes.

Studio Love has created a Start Here Series specifically to address that.

These classes emphasize foundations, technique and slower instruction, with room to ask questions and learn how things work.

From there, classes are organized partly by the experience someone wants.

The Power Series is faster and more athletic.

The Flow Series uses continuous, intelligently sequenced movement at a more moderate pace.

The Restore Series slows things down with an emphasis on recovery, mobility and relaxation.

The Feature Series is reserved for workshops, pop-ups and specialty programming.

That structure gives someone a more useful question than simply, “Do I want yoga or Pilates?”

The question becomes, “What do I need today?”

There’s Even a Blind Date

New members can try Studio Love through something called the Blind Date Membership.

It’s a 14-day introductory program providing 55 credits and two guest passes.

The idea is to give someone enough freedom to experiment before deciding what they actually like.

Try the reformer.

Take a mat class.

Bring a friend.

Try something else.

Studio Love’s regular memberships operate on the same credit philosophy.

Rather than buying a membership that locks someone into one particular kind of class, members receive monthly credits that can be spent across different Studio Love experiences.

A Reformer class currently uses 15 credits.

A mat class uses 10 credits.

A workshop uses 15 credits.

Drop-in classes are also available for people who don’t want a membership.

The Studio Is Designed to Grow With Its Members

Studio Love says its schedule will include morning, midday and evening options.

More importantly, Chapman and Skinner aren’t treating the opening schedule as permanent.

They plan to add and adjust class times and formats according to what members actually use and request.

That’s a small but meaningful difference between opening a business with a predetermined formula and opening one intended to become part of a community.

If the 10 a.m. class fills and another time doesn’t, they can respond.

If members want more restorative work, the schedule can evolve.

If workshops prove popular, there can be more of them.

The grand opening is the beginning rather than the finished product.

This Is Also Becoming a Yoga School

Studio Love already has its next major project scheduled.

Beginning in January 2027, the studio will become home to Sangha Yoga School, offering a Yoga Alliance-registered 200-hour yoga teacher training program.

The six-month program runs through June and combines monthly in-person training weekends at Studio Love with Wednesday evening online sessions.

And it’s considerably broader than learning how to lead people through poses.

The curriculum includes yoga philosophy and origins, anatomy, alignment, Ayurveda, meditation, Sanskrit, chanting, restorative yoga, yin, teaching methodology and assisting.

Daily spiritual practice and community are built into the program as well.

Chapman is the school’s founder and lead instructor.

Skinner serves as a lead instructor with an emphasis on anatomy.

The program is open not only to aspiring yoga teachers but also to people who want to deepen their own practice without necessarily planning to teach.

Sangha Explains a Lot About Studio Love

The word sangha traditionally refers to a community devoted to spiritual practice.

That makes it an appropriate name for the school, but it also helps explain the larger Studio Love concept.

Chapman describes returning to yoga following the death of her mother and needing both a safe place to land and a community.

That experience informs what she is trying to create now.

Exercise can be individual.

Community can’t.

A reformer, yoga mat or meditation cushion may be the tool that gets someone into the building, but Studio Love’s larger ambition is to make people feel that they belong once they arrive.

The Grand Opening Is the Easy Way to See It

Nobody needs to understand Pilates before walking into the September 18 celebration.

You don’t need to own a yoga mat.

You don’t need to know the difference between vinyasa and yin.

And you’re not being asked to demonstrate anything involving flexibility in front of strangers.

The grand opening is a party.

From 5 to 8 p.m., Studio Love will welcome visitors with drinks, bites, live music and dancing.

At 6 p.m., the official ribbon cutting will mark the opening with the Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce and City of Groton.

It’s an opportunity to see the space, meet the people behind it and find out what they’re offering without committing to a class.

And for Chapman and Skinner, it’s a chance to introduce the community to something they’ve clearly thought about beyond the equipment and class schedule.

A New Kind of Fitness Space for Groton

There are plenty of places where you can exercise.

Studio Love is betting that people are looking for something more specific.

Good instruction without intimidation.

Challenging movement without punishment.

Pilates without requiring someone to already understand a reformer.

Yoga without requiring someone to already be flexible.

A quiet practice when that’s what you need.

A sweaty one when that’s what you want.

And perhaps a cup of tea and another human being to talk to when class is over.

That’s a considerably larger ambition than opening another workout studio.

On September 18, Groton gets its first look.

Details

Event: Studio Love Grand Opening
Date: Friday, September 18, 2026
Time: 5–8 p.m.
Ribbon Cutting: 6 p.m.
Location: Studio Love
Address: 70 Bridge Street, Groton, CT 06340
Founders: Annie Chapman and Maggie Skinner
Business: Women-owned Pilates, yoga and social wellness club
Grand Opening Activities: Drinks, bites, live music and dancing
Regular Offerings: Reformer and apparatus Pilates, mat Pilates, yoga, meditation, breathwork, workshops and specialty programming
Beginner Options: Start Here Series provides slower, foundational instruction for newcomers and those returning to movement
Introductory Offer: Blind Date Membership provides new clients with 55 credits for 14 days and two guest passes
Class Credits: Reformer classes use 15 credits; mat classes use 10; workshops use 15
Veterans: Studio Love offers a 10% veteran discount with valid identification
Mat Rentals: $2 for mat-based classes; no equipment is required for apparatus Pilates classes
Contact: 860-530-4800
Email: namaste@studiolovecollective.com
Coming in 2027: Sangha Yoga School’s Yoga Alliance-registered 200-hour teacher training begins in January

More information is available at the Event Website link below.

 

Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.