Participants in a class at the Yoga Studio make good use of the renovated main room. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

The Yoga Studio of Austin recently reached its fullest potential in its current location with a new expansion, giving it more availability to offer the Austin community.

“This room is just gorgeous, this is part of our expansion/renovation,” Yoga Studio of Austin owner Lindsey Kepper said, pointing to the newest expansion.

The Yoga Studio’s newly rennovated space. Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com

The yoga studio, which is located upstairs on 401 North Main Street, has gone through several renovations over the years. The most recent took out the last remaining wall that was not a supportive wall in the upstairs. Removing the wall allowed Kepper to make one of the rooms —Studio 2 — bigger, making space for about 40 people instead of only 28 in classes that take place in that room.

“We were maxing out at like 26 or 28 people before, and it stunk to have to turn people away,” she said.

The entire upstairs of the building is now occupied by the yoga studio and Patrick Whalen, who co-rents the upstairs with Kepper and does massage therapy.

Kepper opened the yoga studio in June 2011, about a year after she moved here when her husband got a job with Hormel. She worked as a professional yoga teacher in Minneapolis before the move and was surprised to find Austin didn’t have a yoga studio.

“I wanted yoga so bad that the only way that I was going to get my yoga back was to actually move or to build it here,” Kepper said.

So she decided to build it, citing the film “Field of Dreams,” “If you build it, they will come.”

“Then it was amazing all the people that just started coming out of the cornfields, I don’t know, because I hadn’t met them and they wanted yoga,” she laughed. “And then I just felt at home. I finally felt at home here.”

The studio won the Chamber of Austin’s New Business of the Year award in Feb. 2012, and a while back Whalen won massage therapist of the year by Massage Envy.

The unfortunate thing about so many people — at least 100, Kepper said — wanting yoga during her first year was the room she was renting in the upstairs building, studio 1 for $200 a month, only fit about 10 people at a time. People had to go on a waiting list and Kepper was at the studio all the time trying to fit in more classes each day.

“A tiny little space. So then I started to save money, and then we moved over here,” she said, pointing out the second area that was expanded. “And this is our main check-in area, and through here is the new changing room area.”

The first expansion into the back half of the studio came about seven months into owning the business. A few months into the studio, Kepper saved enough money to change the old carpet floors to a laminate flooring. Now there is also a room for skin services and thai massage. Kepper explained there is no more room to expand, as all the other walls are supporting walls.

“This is as big as the studio can be,” she said.

Kepper hopes to remain in the downtown building for as long as possible, although she also hopes to get as many people doing yoga as possible. About 12 people work at the studio overall on both the yoga and massage sides.

“What I see for the future is continuing to have really full classes, getting as many people to participate in yoga as possible and strengthening the community that we have here,” she said. “Just continuing to be innovative and offer different, creative classes and opportunities for the students that we have here, and for the community of Austin.”

Kepper has partnered with several businesses in Austin, offering discounts to employees of businesses if they put the studio on their online ads. Kepper said she’s open to partnering with any business that would like to. The studio has also partnered with the YMCA of Austin, offering discounts for people who are members of both the YMCA and the Yoga Studio.

Yoga Studio of Austin owner Lindsey Kepper performs a yoga pose in the newly renovated main room of her business on Main Street Austin. BELOW: A full empty view of the new space.

“That’s been fantastic,” she said. “I love having that and supporting that, and them supporting us.”

”It’s just been amazing, everyone’s support,” she added. “I never can take credit for this place, everyone has been so amazing.”

The studio has classes every day and offers different payment plans. For more information, visit yogastudioofaustin.com.