The world’s largest Pilates studio will open in NYC this June

In 1926, Joseph and Clara Pilates opened the world’s first-ever Pilates studio at 939 Eighth Ave. One hundred years and 40 blocks later, Manhattan will soon become home to the world’s largest.

Melissa Malamut
04.30.26

The world’s largest Pilates studio will open in NYC this June

Genevieve Ross is bringing the townhouse for local Pilates fanatics on June 1, and she has more locations in the works.

“I had no idea going into it that we were opening the biggest studio,” Reforming Pilates owner Genevieve Ross, 34, told The Post. “But my husband called and said, ‘This is the most incredible space I’ve ever seen in my life. There is nothing like it.’ He signed [the lease] on the spot. I didn’t even see the space because I had just given birth.”

Reforming Pilates Townhouse is scheduled to open on June 1 in a three-story, nearly 7,000-square-foot space at 109 W. 17th St. in Flatiron. The lease is for 10 years, but other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The former carriage house, with its red-brick facade, is 25 feet wide and was built in 1920, according to records. It will be the company’s second New York location; there is already a two-story studio on the Upper East Side.

“The townhouse has great bones, beautiful lighting and old fireplaces,” Ross said.

Despite likely being the largest studio in the world — there are several boutique studios around 6,000 square feet: a Lagree studio in Toronto, New York Pilates’ Flatiron location and a yoga and Pilates studio in Austin, Texas — the new Reforming Pilates Townhouse won’t be overrun with reformers.

The space has two separate equipment rooms, capped at 10 reformers each, plus an infrared-heated mat Pilates room and a place for private classes.

Keeping each space small was important for quality control, “so the instructors can do hands-on modifications and can see everyone,” Ross said.

Reforming Pilates opened its first location in Miami in 2021. It has since expanded to nine studios in Florida and New York, not including this townhouse, with at least three more in the works. Two of them will be in Florida and one will be in Manhattan’s Murray Hill. The growth has been all word-of-mouth, Ross said.

“We have spent, to this day, $0 on ad spend,” Ross said. “We don’t do Google ads, we don’t do anything like that. It’s all been just opening where our clients wanted us to go.”

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