After years of running a construction company on his father's land, Doug Gonder has applied to have it properly zoned to host both a Pilates studio and a Montessori school.

With plans to move his River Ridge Lane construction company to a lot he owns in Marwell, and a wife who is a certified Pilates instructor with a starter studio already, the couple felt it was time to move ahead with their big plans.

"There is currently a single-detached house, an accessory building for a home-based business major to host Pilates classes and a storage building for snow removal equipment," said city planner Mike Gau.

He read city council an administrative report on the zoning application at Monday evening's standing committee meeting.

The property has been in the Gonder family since at least the 1960s, said wife Elizabeth. Since then, it has been host to three zoning barriers placed by city planners.

The Gonders would like their property to be rezoned from a mix of Country Residential and Residential Multiple Housing (restricted) to Mixed Use Commercial 1.

"The proposed floor area ratio, site coverage, building height and lot area meet the requirements of the Mixed Use Commercial 1 zone," said Gau.

Elizabeth explained to the Star Wednesday that her existing Northern Lights Pilates Studio, which was built two years ago, will see an expansion.

"We'll have a deck out those double doors, so we can do outdoor classes," she said, pointing to the opposite wall in her yellow-painted studio.

"I'm from California, and we're big on outside classes there."

She said she met Doug over the Internet and on a blind first date in Juneau, Alaska. She moved to Whitehorse from Marin County in 2000.

While living in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1990s, she was trained in a budding fitness program called Pilates (pronounced Puh-lah-tees).

The program was so named after founder Joseph Pilates, a German athlete who invented a workout regime geared toward recovering soldiers who were bedridden.

Using the technique, Elizabeth served celebrity clients like actress Jodie Foster and athletes from the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team and Oakland Raiders football team.

When she moved here to be with the love of her life, Elizabeth said, she had to take her passion for Pilates with her.

"I basically brought Pilates to Whitehorse," she said.

Today, she has hired staff to help teach classes, and told council she plans to hire more with the expansion of her studio.

She trains local students, elders, children and athletes, including the Canada Winter Games women's hockey team and Olympic-bound weightlifter Jeane Lassen.

She said residents of Porter Creek and the surrounding trailer courts often walk and bike to her studio for private, semi-private and small group classes.

"With the addition of this 90-unit condo next door, we expect much more traffic," she said.

The studio overlooks Whitehorse's encompassing mountains and the Yukon River— a truly serene view for such an introspective, slow and movement-focused fitness regime. She said all future developments to the property will keep the riverside view clear.

The second option in the overall property renovation could include a Montessori school.

Elizabeth said she and her husband applied for the appropriate zoning now, though any finalized deal with the school has not been confirmed.

"The Montessori school would also be permitted because it is considered a 'child care centre,' another principle use in the Mixed Use Commercial 1 zone," said Gau.

The school has approached the couple over the last few years, because its staff are looking for a location that could host both the school and a children's playground. It currently runs out of an office on Jarvis Street.

"I'm a real fan of Montessori schools," said Elizabeth. "I would participate in that."

She would be able to walk her twins next door for school — a real bonus for this busy parent! The twins are currently two years old.

"We think it would blend in well with the neighbourhood," Doug said at the standing committee meeting of his proposed property renovation.

"We're a proven benefit to the neighbourhood. The (Pilates) class sizes are minimal; there's not a heavy, congested traffic flow."

"It's about injury prevention," said Elizabeth, as she explained how clients of varying ages and abilities use props and elaborate contraptions that look like sliding beds with pulleys attached to them.

Council is set to give the zoning amendment first reading at next Tuesday's council meeting, with a public hearing set for April 14.