Where dancers live
A private ballroom studio on the second floor of our house — thirty feet of floated maple, a full wall of mirrors, and an open door for the dancers we know.
How it started
We started ballroom dancing to get ready for our wedding ceremony. Two years later we were still at it, still running out of hours at the studio, and still pushing the furniture aside in the living room at eleven at night. So we built a floor.
What began as a place for the two of us to practice turned into something we wanted to get right. From the first board down, the goal was a beautiful, functional, professional-grade space, good enough for practice, lessons, or a small class.
We named it The Open Floor. The tagline is literal: this is where dancers live.
Before you visit
Professionals teach here and classes happen here — but the studio is on the second floor of a house that people actually live in.
There are two dogs and a cat. Only one of the dogs barks, and she is harmless. We keep the downstairs reasonably clean and clear of clutter, but between our own dance commitments and the business we run, it is not always perfect — there may well be animal hair on the floor.
You might walk in to someone watching television on the couch, or the smell of dinner cooking in the kitchen. A resident may cut through the studio on their way somewhere. Please excuse the mess, the noise, and the household life going on around you.
Very little of it will reach you mid-lesson, though. The studio is upstairs and the living happens downstairs, so the household you walk past on the way in stays behind you once you’re on the floor. When a lesson or a class is running we keep out of the way — and the pets are not allowed upstairs at all.
Shiloh
The one who barks
Ocho
The one who doesn’t
Newton
Unbothered either way
The space
Everything here was chosen for how it behaves under a dancer — the give of the floor, the sightlines in the mirror, the way sound carries in a room with a vaulted ceiling.
30′ × 20′ of engineered maple hardwood on a floating subfloor. The float is the point: it gives underfoot, which is what your knees will notice after an hour of drilling, and it takes a heel without complaint. Six hundred square feet is room for a lesson, a small class, or two couples practicing without getting in each other’s way.
72″ mirrors run the length of the room, floor to well above eye level. You can see your frame, your feet, and your partner at the same time from anywhere on the floor.
The vaulted ceiling and open plan give the room a clarity most converted spaces never get. Music sits well in it, and an instructor can be heard across the floor without shouting.
A row of windows along the front wall keeps the floor in natural light, with track lighting and dimmable overheads for evening practice.
Gallery
Select any photo to view it full size.
Beyond the floor
The floor opens onto a sitting area with couches and a large television — good for watching back a video, waiting out a lesson, or just catching your breath between rounds.
Downstairs
The studio is upstairs. Downstairs is where the parties happen — a second floor to dance on, opening onto the kitchen and dining nook through a service window. On the kitchen side of that window is a full service bar, which we call The Open Barre.
The ceiling fan came out and a rotating-head party light went in. Two parties so far: a fortieth in April, rainbow from the stair rail to the ceiling, and a quarter-life crisis in July in black and pink.
Three a year is the plan — a homeowner’s birthday, Halloween, and Christmas. We haven’t been in this house long enough for the last two yet.
Having a party here
When we are the ones hosting, The Open Barre is an open bar. Ask for whatever you like and we will pour it if we have it, and we will not take a penny for it. It is not for sale. It is our own liquor, given away, and only to people over 21.
If you are the one hosting, you may be given some access to what is behind the bar, at our discretion. Otherwise these events are strictly BYOB. Either way: no alcohol is bought or sold on these premises, and nobody under 21 is drinking it.
To host here at all you need a direct connection to one of us, or to somebody close enough to us that we would trust them to vouch for their guests. We are not an event venue, and we carry no insurance of the kind that would imply. We are simply trusting our friends not to bring belligerent people into our home.
These are photographs of private parties, and the people in them are our guests. If you are in one and would rather not be, email us and it comes down or gets edited — no explanation needed.
Always in progress
The room is finished enough to dance in and never quite finished. Here’s what’s on the list.
Paired to a dedicated studio tablet running Spotify, so anyone on the floor can queue up their own music without hunting for a cable.
Placed at several points around the room so you can set a phone or camera down at the right angle and record yourself dancing.
Adjustable-angle barres that fold flat against the wall when they’re not in use, so they cost nothing in floor space. Good for stretching, for warming up, and for drilling swivels with something solid to hold.
Dance photographs, medals, trophies and awards — ours and, in time, other people’s.
Using the floor
The Open Floor isn’t a rental business and it isn’t open to the public — it’s our home. It is also in use every single day: we practice on it ourselves, and there are usually one or two sets of students on it besides. There is still room for more.
If you teach in the dance community and need somewhere to hold a private lesson or a small class, the space is yours at no charge.
If we know you and you just want a place to practice, ask. Bring a partner, bring your shoes, put on your own music.
Nothing here costs anything. Ever.
Not the floor, not the drinks, not anything else — not for instructors, not for friends, not for anyone. We are a studio space, not a dance studio: we don’t teach, we don’t book lessons, and we take no cut of anything. If an instructor charges for their time, that is between them and their student, and none of our business.
The Open Floor is a gift to the dancing community. The homeowners do not profit from it in any way, and never will.
Get in touch
Tell us a little about what you’re looking for and roughly when. We’ll share the address once we’ve settled on a time.