Wauwatosa Yoga Loft Marks Five Years of Community-Rooted Practice

Five years ago, Maren Iverson taught her first class out of a rented community room above a Wauwatosa coffee shop, with eight students and a borrowed sound system. This spring, Sunroot Yoga Loft occupies a full second-story studio in the Village, running upward of twenty classes a week and hosting a waitlist for its most popular Sunday morning sessions.

"I didn't set out to build a business," Iverson said. "I just wanted somewhere in Tosa where people could show up without feeling like they needed to already be flexible or already be fit. It turned into something bigger than I expected."

The studio's anniversary comes at a moment when boutique fitness studios across the Milwaukee suburbs have faced real pressure from low-cost gym chains and at-home streaming apps. Iverson said Sunroot has managed to grow through that period by leaning into the parts of in-person practice that apps can't replicate.

Building a Studio Around Belonging

Sunroot's class roster reflects a deliberate mix, from vigorous vinyasa flow to slower, prop-heavy restorative sessions aimed at older adults and people recovering from injury. Iverson said roughly a third of her regular students are over fifty, a demographic she has intentionally built programming around rather than treating as an afterthought.

"A lot of studios market almost exclusively to twenty- and thirty-somethings," Iverson said. "We have members in their seventies who come three times a week. Designing classes that actually serve them, not just modify a young person's class, has been part of how we've stayed full."

The studio also runs a sliding-scale membership tier, subsidized in part by higher-priced workshop offerings, that Iverson said has allowed roughly fifteen percent of the current student base to attend at reduced cost. She said the decision to maintain that program, even during leaner months, was a deliberate bet that community trust would pay off over time.

Marking the Milestone

To celebrate the anniversary, Sunroot is hosting a full weekend of free community classes in early May, along with a donation-based candlelight session benefiting a Milwaukee-area domestic violence support organization. Iverson said the studio has run some version of a charity class every year since opening, a tradition she credits with deepening ties to the broader Wauwatosa community beyond the yoga mat.

Longtime member Beatriz Souza, who has practiced at Sunroot since its second year, said the studio's growth hasn't come at the expense of its original feel. "It still feels like walking into someone's living room, just a really well-run one," Souza said. "That's rare once a business gets bigger."

Iverson said she has no immediate plans to open a second location, despite interest from students who have asked about a Brookfield or West Allis branch. "I'd rather do one studio really well than spread myself across three and lose what makes this place work," she said. For now, the focus remains on the Village storefront, with plans to add a teacher-training program next year for students hoping to eventually lead their own classes.