We Didn’t Set Out to Build a Wellness Empire
I grew up in a big Midwestern family. My mother worked part-time as a nurse, my father worked in farming, and we often struggled to make ends meet. We didn’t have luxury cars, vacations, or brand-name clothes. I remember using lunch tickets at school while some of my classmates handed over cash for extra snacks. I noticed the difference, and it affected me deeply.
From a young age, I worked. From cleaning pig pens and detasseling corn, to hoeing the soybean fields and delivering newspapers, I always had a job. If I wanted a Nintendo, I had to buy it myself. And yet, every time I asked my parents if we were poor, they said the same thing:
“Son, we are rich.”
They meant it. We were rich in love. Rich in tradition. Rich in spirit and purpose. My parents taught me that true wealth wasn’t measured in money — it was measured in connection, health, faith, and the strength of the people around you. I carried that idea with me long before I knew I would build anything. And that idea — that meaning of what it truly means to be rich — is the heartbeat of Body Haus Lifestyle Club.
True wealth is connection, health, and purpose.
Rich in Spirit, Not in Money
While many of my peers in college were working on career ladders, I was trying to figure out how to see more live music. For me, richness came through experience. Whether dancing to Phish, singing with strangers, or meeting people who felt like family for a night or a lifetime. I was chasing community, connection, and meaning. That pursuit would change my life in ways I never expected.
A love story rooted in purpose and passion.
The Beginning of Us
On one stop during a tour, I met my future wife and partner, Natalie. We met dancing at a reggae concert in Chicago, and we fell in love instantly. I stayed in the Midwest to get to know her for a few weeks before returning to California, where I was studying horticulture, business, and getting deep into the emerging world of medical cannabis.
At that time the green rush was just beginning. I believed in the plant, its healing properties, and its ability to serve humanity. That belief led to launching a horticultural supply business, building cultivation facilities, and helping grow an industry from the ground up. It was about freedom and purpose. It was never about the money, but the money flowed. Over the next 15 years, we built companies generating millions in revenue and a powerful community of people who believed in the same dream.
Natalie moved to California after a couple years of long-distance love. But her path was different. While I worked to legitimize cannabis, Natalie found her true calling in yoga and Pilates. She trained under the guidance of some of the most respected traditional teachers. It awakened something in her. It aligned with her soul, and she knew her purpose.
Wellness, family, and the pursuit of meaning.
Living Richly in California
We were raising children, living on a farm, growing our own food, practicing yoga, and building cannabis operations. On paper, we were “living richly.” But in time, the cracks began to show. There was a darker side to the cannabis community. Realities I could no longer ignore. Some people I loved were making dangerous choices. I discovered betrayal in my own business, and I realized I was no longer aligned with the life I was living.
So we made a radical choice: we left California and moved back to the Midwest.
From studio to farm, a community was born.
Building Something New
We bought a farm and opened our first yoga and Pilates studio in Carmel, Indiana. Natalie, although having never taught a class in that community before, quickly built a loyal following. Her teaching, her essence, and the results she delivered drew people in and kept them coming back. We brought our young kids to the studio every day. We built classes, hosted events, and created something bigger than fitness — we built a community around high-vibration living, around real connection, around a new lifestyle.
Natalie continued to master her training at the highest levels, and I was learning, too. While I ran our farm and sold at farmers markets, I was also learning about movement, wellness, and the deep relationship between the food we eat, the way we move, and the life we live. What I realized was this: we were building something special, and it wasn’t just about yoga or produce. It was about lifestyle. About the community that formed around it. A new kind of richness. One that mirrored my childhood values, and yet offered something even deeper — intentional living.
That realization led to our next leap of faith. After seven years, we sold Body Mind & Core. Our new vision was a yoga and farm retreat in Belize. It would be a place where everything we had learned from movement, nourishment, nature, and connection would come together in one experience. After six months of very hard work, we opened Belize Jungle Yoga and hosted our first retreat on a deck that I built with my own hands.
We were living what we believed in. But the journey wasn’t done yet.
In Belize, we rediscovered what it means to live richly.
Then came Covid
I remember hearing about the Italian cruise liner while sitting in a circle of yogis and farmers from around the world. Within moments, everything changed. We were hosting our first retreat on the Belize property, but the world was closing, and we needed to help guests return home. We stayed behind.
We weren’t worried at first. We were waiting on the final payment from the sale of our studio — it was scheduled to arrive within 30 days. But 30 days passed. No payment. The buyer breached the contract. Retreats we had booked for the year ahead were canceled. Deposits returned. Flights grounded. Borders locked. Just like that, we were stranded and broke. Stuck in a foreign country, with our children, during a global pandemic.
The first few days were among the darkest of our lives. We had lost our income, our future plans, and most of our safety net. With little options and no interest in returning to the pandemic mess in the USA, we sold our home in Indiana and retreated to the small village where Natalie was born in Rancho Dolores, Belize.
We had nothing. By all modern definitions, we lived poor. But every morning we were greeted by joyful neighbors. This was a village that never had much — no running water, no bathrooms in most of the board houses. But they had music, dancing, tradition, family, and faith. We raised food, fished the river, and made rum drinks from our coconut trees.
We didn’t just survive, we thrived. We simplified. Just like my childhood, I was reminded once again: this is what it means to live richly.
Resilience became the foundation of BHLCO.
From Survival to Strength
After 18 months, we were down to our last bag of beans. The world was starting to move again, and I had one choice: to return to the cannabis industry. It was the best way for me to provide for my family. I had executive-level value there, so I took a Director role in Michigan and began rebuilding. Natalie and the kids joined me four months later. She went back to teaching Pilates.
In those early months back in Michigan, life was about staying steady, keeping food on the table, and slowly rebuilding our sense of stability. Yet beneath the surface, both of us were yearning for something greater. We wanted a vehicle to channel our skills and passions into a positive impact. We knew we wanted to create more than just careers; we wanted to shape a way of life, one rooted in service, movement, and connection. As Natalie returned to teaching Pilates and I found footing again in leadership, the vision began to quietly take root: a place where the work we loved could become the foundation for helping others live more richly.
It was in those moments, rebuilding from nothing, reconnecting with what truly mattered, and watching Natalie transform lives again through Pilates, that the seed for Body Haus Lifestyle Club was planted. Nurturing that idea we realized the problem. The fitness and wellness world was scattered: too many complicated memberships, services were spread across town, and the experience lacked community, hospitality and flow. We set out to change that.
Body Haus Lifestyle Club was born from a clear and undeniable need—a place where Pilates, Yoga, and the most powerful recovery and wellness services could live under one roof. With one club, one membership, and all the things, we created a space where convenience meets transformation. More than a club, it’s a community—a gathering place for people who believe in living well, feeling good, and redefining what it means to live richly.
One club. One vision. A movement begins.
We have completed the ultimate club franchise model, and we’re now preparing to break ground on an 18,000 sq. ft. flagship location, featuring our signature Pilates and Yoga, saunas, cold plunges, and light therapy studios, but there is more. Our flagship features our largest retail boutique, 4 indoor pickleball courts, a space for wellness events, education, and community transformation. It makes the perfect 3rd place for anyone living a total wellness lifestyle.
This is your brand. Live richly with us.