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<\/a>\u201cPhoto of Joe Pilates, 80 yrs. and Ruth St. Denis, 84 yrs.\u201d Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1954 \u2013 1960.<\/p>\n\u201cFundamental to all normal and artistic expression of the body are certain basic principles and rules of beautiful human movement, and I am convinced that Joe Pilates, in his long career as the refashioner of men and women, knows more and practices what he knows on a demonstrable basis than anyone else with whom I have come in contact,\u201d wrote St. Denis for a promotional pamphlet Pilates produced. \u201cUnder his treatment not only is the body rebuilt and rejuvenated, but the mental and spiritual refreshment is beyond calculation. I think there should be a thousand Joe Pilateses scattered over the United States to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual forces of this country. With them we would indeed create a great nation and the real hope of the world. I close these few inadequate sentences with a sense of deep gratitude to all that Joe Pilates is doing for me today.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an unpublished section of an early draft of Shawn\u2019s autobiographical memoir \u201cOne Thousand and One Night Stands,\u201d Shawn described how he first met and trained with Pilates:<\/p>\n
Facing a winter of physical inactivity in 1940, I decided I would look up and try out a course of exercises at the studio of Joseph Pilates. Ruth St. Denis had discovered this man and raved about him, and I could see with my own eyes how he had helped her. She had suffered for years with bad knees and could not kneel or get up without excruciating pain. The result of this and a general discouragement had kept her from practicing as she should, and she had added weight all over, and her ankles had gotten big.<\/p>\n
Then, a year or two later, after working faithfully for many months with Pilates, she was slim as in the years when I first knew her, her ankles like a young girl\u2019s, and she had no more pain or trouble with her knees. She called him a sculptor of the body and said he was no ordinary gymnastics instructor, but an inspired genius.<\/p>\n
And so, I found him. I dimly recognized the old Van Dyke Studio building when I first went to him. But only after many days did it dawn on me that it was in this building, I had taught my first lessons in New York, spring of 1914. Joe and his partner Clara, intensely German in manner and dialect, were martinets. But he was truly a genius, and his system of exercises was all that Ruth had described. I went daily all that winter and the following year whenever I was in New York, and lost weight, trimmed down waistline, got suppleness throughout my torso, and was altogether made over.<\/p>\n
In further praise of Pilates\u2019 help with his physical transformation, Shawn wrote:<\/p>\n
Your set of exercises for chair are so complete that every muscle of the body is toned up equally all over, and the varied exercises are also void of monotony (such as, for instance, the floor exercises sometimes seem just drudgery to me)\u2026 This necessity to keep one\u2019s mind alert, and the constantly changing positions hold one\u2019s interest and this, in itself, is a valuable part of daily exercising- to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
Shawn invited Pilates to join the faculty of Jacob\u2019s Pillow in 1941. He said it wasn\u2019t until the summer of 1942 that Pilates was able to carve out a substantive role on campus: \u201cI had tried to sell him to [Anton] Dolin who was running the Pillow in 1941 and Joe did conduct a few classes in 1941 but Dolin was not really interested in his work and they did not get along well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never got further than the mat,\u201d shared dancer Ann Hutchinson Guest in talking about Pilates\u2019 class at Jacob\u2019s Pillow in 1942.<\/p>\n Dancer Sharry Underwood shared her memories of taking Pilates classes at Jacob\u2019s Pillow:<\/p>\n In 1942, when I was 20, I ran away from home to be a dancer. At Jacob\u2019s Pillow University of the Dance, my first class was called Pilates\u2026. Promptly at 8:00 a.m., clapping his hands together, Pilates directed class with a relentless stream of demands designed for strength and control. There was no music. Each exercise had its own rhythm and breathing\u2014air out! air in! On the bare floor, I envied those on mats as we did the \u2018Hun\u2019ert\u2019 (The Hundreds), flung our bodies \u2018onza stomick,\u2019 then \u2018onza back!\u2019 or to \u2018da udder zide an hold it!\u2019<\/p>\n Pilates\u2019 class was compulsory for every student. We came willingly as we better understood how it strengthened us, gave us faith in our bodies. What I had called my \u2018dancer\u2019s back\u2019 was a physical defect: lordosis. Under Pilates\u2019 care, I gave birth to three vertebrae I had never felt before, correcting my alignment. Joe was famous for correcting back problems, saying, \u2018You are as strong as your weakest vertebra, like a ladder with a broken rung.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2026At first I was not sure Joe liked dance or dancers. He gave no quarter in class. We were still considered flighty dilettantes during the war. But he grew to respect our struggles\u2026. During the three years I studied under Joe, he never used any of his machines or weights with us. The body must supply the energy. He seldom used kinesiology nomenclature, calling out his 33 exercises: Corkscrew, Scissor, Boomerang, etc. Teaser, the body balancing like a jackknife, was a favorite. <\/p>\n \u2026Once you have learned Pilates, it becomes a conscience for your body the rest of your life. For me [at 88], pure Pilates is still the best.<\/p>\n In 1943 Pilates initiated a \u201cWar Fitness Program\u201d hosted at Jacob\u2019s Pillow \u201cfor laymen, industrial workers etc.\u201d and Pilates invited Berkshire residents to attend.<\/p>\n At the end of the 1943 Festival season, Shawn wrote that Pilates\u2019 attitude and behavior had crossed red lines with him:<\/p>\n He wanted to run everything. He maintained that all this dance business was nonsense and the whole of Jacob\u2019s Pillow should be turned over to him to run his health farm\u2014health was really important, art was only trivial and unessential. He drank a lot, he philandered with the girl students, and he took no orders and abided by no rules or schedules of the place. He did what he wanted to do when and how he wanted to do it. His work was so excellent that I put up with this for two summers but at the end of the 1943 summer he got so ugly in manner and so peremptory in his advice as to how I should run all of my business that when he left the place hardly speaking to me\u2026 I continued to recommend people to go to him.<\/p>\n Sharry Underwood provided firsthand accounts of how Pilates\u2019 behavior with her crossed a line. \u201cOnce when he was massaging my strained ankle, I caught him massaging all the way up my thigh. I clasped my hands at my knee, giving him a look. He just chuckled,\u201d wrote Underwood in Dance Magazine in 2010. She described another inappropriate interaction from the summer of 1942: \u201cPilates strode over to me. Throwing a heavy hand over my left breast and jiggling it up and down, he roared, \u2018You vant schloppy pectorals? You sqveeze!\u2019 Mortified, I sqveezed.\u201d<\/p>\n Pilates\u2019 quarrel with Shawn at the end of the 1943 season minimized his presence at Jacob\u2019s Pillow for several years, but he returned in limited official capacities beginning again in 1947. That summer he was also working as a physical conditioning specialist at the Berkshire Playhouse Drama School.<\/p>\n In 1948 Pilates bought and began using a nearby cottage and studio in Becket. He later commented, \u201cI couldn\u2019t stay alive if every weekend I didn\u2019t go to the country.\u201d He would train dancers both at Jacob\u2019s Pillow and work with them on his apparatuses at his personal studio.<\/p>\n Ann Hutchinson Guest said: \u201cWhen he had his own house\u2026[and] barn, he put the various apparatuses that he was using.\u201d<\/p>\n Gordon Hyatt, who lived in Lee and Stockbridge for most of his life, helped Pilates maintain his newly acquired property. During one of those weekly visits, Pilates pulled Hyatt into a workout. \u201cYou have no stomach muscles,\u201d Hyatt recalled Pilates telling him while being instructed to engage his core on a piece of equipment called a Bednasium.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Pilates, he was wonderful,\u201d said Madeline Cantarella Culpo, a Pittsfield native who was a student at Jacob\u2019s Pillow in 1950 and is now in her 90s. \u201cWe would have his class at Jacob\u2019s Pillow. Whatever he tells you to do, you did. The exercises were not very hard; I was a kid and flexible, so the movements were easy. Now if you were to ask me to do those exercises, I can\u2019t sit on the floor without slipping off a couch because that\u2019s the only way I can get to the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n In \u201cSee All the People,\u201d Lee historian Florence Consolati shared an anecdote about taking a Pilates fitness class at Jacob\u2019s Pillow with her cousin Rena Kamena:<\/p>\n In the early 1950s Cousin Rena came up from New Jersey with her son to visit. She would regularly nurse the two-month-old infant, then rush over to the Pillow to exercise with a body trainer named Joseph Pilates and to listen to Shawn\u2019s wife, Ruth St. Denis, discourse on religious dance. Rena persuaded me to join the sessions. I unearthed a red Sears and Roebuck undershirt that looked like a leotard. With the other sketchily dressed neophytes we raised broomsticks in salute to dawn, at our ageless teacher\u2019s bidding.<\/p>\n German-born Richard \u201cDick\u201d Keinath immigrated to New York, where he first met fellow German American Joseph Pilates. Serendipitously, both men ended up reestablishing themselves in the same rural corner of western Massachusetts.<\/p>\n A friend first introduced Keinath to the Berkshires in the mid-1940s, and he and his family continued to return each summer. In 1954, the Keinaths left Islip, Long Island, where they were the proprietors of Islip Terrace and East Islip Bakeries for 30 years; they moved to East Lee and bought the East Lee Package Store and gas station on Water Street. As one of the few area liquor stores at the time, their business was popular.<\/p>\n Keinath recommended Pilates\u2019 exercises to his friend and East Lee neighbor, George Allen, to help him recuperate from an injured back. Keinath told Allen: \u201cI want you to talk to Joe Pilates. I know he can fix you.\u201d Pilates did, beginning a training regimen with Allen.<\/p>\n While Allen worked at the P.J. Schweitzer Division paper mill and eventually would go on to own Allen\u2019s Trailer Park in East Lee, he was also a carpenter. Allen built his own Reformer and used a Bench Mat provided by Pilates. Allen practiced daily for two years and saw significant physical improvements.<\/p>\n Jonathan Grubb interviewed Allen\u2019s daughter Beverly. She reported that both of her parents visited Pilates in New York. Back in the Berkshires, Allen and his sons, George Jr. and Paul, helped maintain Pilates\u2019 property in Becket. Together they served as the caretakers, groundskeepers, handymen, and jacks-of-all-trades.<\/p>\n \u201cMy history with Joe Pilates and company dates back to when I was a small child,\u201d said Paul Allen in a 2022 interview with Pilates\u2019 historians, Sean Gallagher and Elaine Ewing. \u201cMy dad had a back problem, and he was introduced to Joe to help repair that back problem and he did. Joe helped my father out an awful lot. My father had a severe disc injury. The disc injury was kind of pushed back in place through exercises. And my father was so grateful to Joe for helping him out without any surgery that he offered his service to come up and help Joe at this campus when I was, oh, probably 12 or 13 years old and I worked with my dad at this campus: Mowing the lawn, doing small jobs, painting, and whatever Joe wanted done as a handy group, my father and I, until I was I think about 16 or maybe 17.\u201d<\/p>\n George Allen continued training with Pilates on his apparatuses when he and his sons came over to tend to the property. \u201cWe, as kids, would play on them,\u201d said Paul Allen. \u201cI mean he chose what the exercises were. And, of course, when you\u2019re 12, they were easy because we were very flexible.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Allen also fondly reminisced about how Pilates passed down his old photo processing equipment to him. \u201cI remember this one plastic cylinder and you\u2019d unwind the film in it and put it into the liquid, and you know play with it. And, he gave me all the chemicals and everything. I would play with it, and it was a really funky homemade enlarger.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Allen said what he believed made Pilates a genius was \u201cmaking not just one muscle group develop but the entire body and the mind\u2026 That\u2019s what geniuses do; they put stuff together that has never been put together before.\u201d<\/p>\n Tony\u2019s Barber Shop<\/p>\n As Joseph Pilates deepened his roots in Lee, his influence extended across unexpected corners of town life. His reputation spread through word of mouth, physical transformations, and personal encounters. One of the most memorable of those encounters began in a barbershop on Main Street, where a returning Navy veteran named Anthony \u201cTony\u201d Carlino met Pilates and became one of his most devoted local followers.<\/p>\n Carlino had recently returned to Lee after serving in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946; upon his return stateside, Carlino completed barber school and then resettled in Lee.<\/p>\n When Pilates walked into the barber shop at 74 Main Street, he and Carlino hit it off immediately. Carlino said, \u201cI was just so amazed at this man [Pilates]. He was so straight, chiseled, and beautiful straight white hair. He loved the sun on him all of the time. He was as tan as tan could be. And we talked about exercise because that was his life, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n At this first encounter, Pilates had Carlino try a position that is now known as the \u201cTeaser.\u201d \u201cAnd he says, let me see you\u2026touch your toes\u2026 so I put my hands up to the toes and held it there, held it there. He didn\u2019t say stop. And he thought that was pretty good, you know,\u201d said Carlino. \u201cI was so impressed with him. We became friends right away.\u201d<\/p>\n The relationship continued when Carlino opened his own barber shop, Tony\u2019s Barber Shop, just across the street. \u201cI\u2019d give a haircut\u2014a shave\u2014you know. I wouldn\u2019t charge him. I loved him so much\u2014you know. I admired him so much.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino trained with Pilates both at his Pillow studio and later at the Becket property. The exercises became part of Carlino\u2019s daily routine. In a 2015 interview with Pilates\u2019 biographer, Cathy Strack, Carlino said:<\/p>\n He was so strong and without fear. He would invent things. This strap you would put on your head and hook it up to a wall or a post and you pull it, and it would strengthen your neck. \u2026 He would fix little rings to his fingers, and he would stretch them. And his fingers would be strong. \u2026 He would have an idea and he would make it. The machinery or a gadget. For the fingers or the neck or legs or whatever.<\/p>\n Carlino said that, one time in November, Pilates instructed him to: \u201cGo outside and take a [cold] shower.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino\u2019s reaction was: \u201cYou kidding me?! Take a shower now?! I\u2019m freezing.\u201d Carlino confirmed that was what Pilates wanted him to do: \u201cHe built the confidence in me to do that\u2026. Wow! I didn\u2019t think I could do that. But I did and it felt good\u2026. That\u2019s the kind of man you want. He gives a command and when you do it, it\u2019s done, and you have that kind of confidence that he has that gives him fuel.\u201d<\/p>\n Sean Gallagher, owner and founder of The New York Pilates Studio\u00ae, shared: \u201cWhen you talk about body, mind, and spirit, Tony got that. He had [PTSD]. Coming back from the war, he was a young guy, and he really had troubles.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino confirmed: \u201cThe reason why I started exercise [is] I was in World War II, and my ship got hit by a kamikaze plane and bombed.\u201d A fellow sailor rescued Carlino that day. Forty-nine shipmates did not survive.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really a wreck when I got home,\u201d explained Carlino. \u201cI was OK over there because I was with everybody on the ship, but as soon as I got home, it was not the same. I was shaky. I was just not in great shape. They wanted to send me to a VA hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino decided on a different route: \u201cI decided, I think I\u2019ll try exercise. So I started doing the exercises, and also meeting Joe helped me learn more about myself\u2014how to exercise and how to have my body more in tune. That\u2019s what made us more friendly, and it just started me on a new path of life at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Joe took him under his wing, and trained him, and taught him, and became his friend, and helped him come back from that,\u201d said Gallagher. \u201cJoe really helped him psychologically, not just physically.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1954, Tony Carlino, Joseph Pilates, and shopkeeper Ben Slaminsky (of Ben\u2019s in the Baird Block of Main Street) opened an exercise studio above Slaminsky\u2019s shop. They named their club The Return to Life Club after Pilates\u2019 exercise book of the same name.<\/p>\n Jonathan Grubb spoke with Slaminsky\u2019s daughter Marcia in 2021 and reported:<\/p>\n Slaminsky (1911 to 1985), a clothes store owner in Lee, Massachusetts was suffering from severe back problems and was reluctant to undergo surgery. Ben\u2019s wife, Ruth, sought out Joseph Pilates and Marcia remembers her father \u2018doing his exercises every morning\u2019, which she also joined in with. Ben also had a friend who was a carpenter who made a reformer for Ben probably for the club.<\/p>\n Marcia\u2019s sister still has that Reformer.<\/p>\n The club\u2019s first meeting was on April 10, 1954. Pilates donated equipment and served as an instructor. Carlino was named president, and Slaminsky became the secretary-treasurer. The other board members were Joseph Pilates, Thomas Connelly, and Peter Shaker.<\/p>\n Pilates\u2019 biographer, Cathy Strack, reported that Connelly was nursing a leg injury from his time in the military. He worked for the gas company upon his return to Lee and became an active sports and recreation community volunteer.<\/p>\n Shaker lived in New York City in the 1930s, where he boxed in his youth. Strack said that he had a reputation for being \u201ca great storyteller.\u201d After his wife Anna died in 1947, he moved to Lee and opened Peter Shaker\u2019s Food Store on Center Street and co-owned the Lenox Hotel. He sold the store to Frank Ustoitis in the early 1970s, and in 1985 the building was demolished to make way for a bridge across the Housatonic River.<\/p>\n Three more men were involved in drafting the club bylaws. Theodore Hitchcock served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a truck driver who worked for the Department of Public Works and served as a police officer and volunteer fireman in Lee. Hubert Orienti was the Lee Fire Chief. And William Salinetti was an insurance agent with John Hancock Insurance Co. in Lee.<\/p>\n George Allen functioned as an additional instructor based on his personal experience training with Pilates and his understanding of Pilates\u2019 methodologies.<\/p>\n Carlino told Strack that the formality of having officers and bylaws was Pilates\u2019 doing and mostly meaningless, but good for PR. \u201cThey ended up doing these mat classes [above] Ben\u2019s\u2026. Above the store were these empty rooms and they would go up there and they would do their mat classes. And Joe started them. He taught them the exercises. He taught the classes there for a while. And then you know, he obviously couldn\u2019t be there all the time, so the men started just doing it on their own.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino said that Pilates was happy to have a way to give back to Lee. \u201cHe was charitable. He gave his all,\u201d said Carlino. \u201cOne thing about him was, there was no money involved. He just wanted to do something good for the town and for the people in it.\u201d<\/p>\n Classes were held every Saturday morning. Slaminsky and Carlino told The Berkshire Eagle that they planned to \u201cpromote among its members the body-building techniques developed by Joseph H. Pilates, New York City physical culturist, who spends his weekends in the Berkshires\u2026. Membership in the club will be limited to about 20. Regular meetings will probably be held weekends, but the club rooms will be open to members all week.\u201d<\/p>\n By May 4, 1954, the club had 28 members. \u201cWe had businessmen, the fire chief, there was a policeman there, there was a Shaker who owned a store, a banker,\u201d said Carlino.<\/p>\n Peter Shaker\u2019s grandson, Eugene Klos, said his family was unaware of Shaker\u2019s connection to Pilates.<\/p>\n William Salinetti\u2019s son Peter said, \u201cThe funny thing is that I never heard my father ever mention Pilates. I know that in his younger years he was a pretty good athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n Marcia Slaminsky said something similar, \u201cMy father rarely talked about 1) WWII 2) his history with Joe Pilates 3) his childhood. He did his \u2018exercises\u2019 EVERY morning for the rest of his life. And I did them with him when I was little. I still do a similar routine every day.\u201d<\/p>\n Allen\u2019s family reported that his family commitments meant that he was only able to remain an instructor for a year or two before the club closed.<\/p>\n Carlino told Strack that the Return to Life Club \u201ceventually broke up because you had all of these really strong personalities\u2026. They just all had different ideas about what to do. But they all appreciated the exercises and in their own way, a lot of them kept doing them.\u201d<\/p>\n Even after the club disbanded, the exercises, and the sense of shared purpose, continued in individual routines throughout Lee.<\/p>\n Pilates\u2019s Becket home studio is preserved<\/p>\n In 1997, Sean Gallagher, owner and founder of The New York Pilates Studio\u00ae, first visited the archives at Jacob\u2019s Pillow to share research on Joseph Pilates after he came into possession of more than 1,000 photographs that once belonged to Joe and Clara Pilates. Gallagher was embroiled in a copyright dispute over branding the name Pilates in the late 1990s. He eventually lost in court and the case established Pilates as a generic exercise term that was not copyrightable.<\/p>\n At Gallagher\u2019s first visit to the Jacob\u2019s Pillow Archives, he met Director of Preservation Norton Owen. Gallagher reported that Owen told him about Pilates\u2019 former Becket property, saying, \u201cThis property is for sale, and I think it has the equipment in it.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallagher visited the property and studio with the realtor. Gallagher conveyed his conversation with the real estate agent: \u201cI told the realtor, \u2018I don\u2019t want the property, but I\u2019ll buy the equipment.\u2019 And then the owner said, \u2018if you want the equipment, you have to buy the property.\u2019 So, here we are, almost 20 years later with the property.\u201d Gallagher is pleased to have saved and revived the original studio.<\/p>\n With the initial restoration of the Becket studio now complete, Gallagher hopes to build bungalows on site. Gallagher is on a mission to keep Pilates\u2019 fitness legacy alive both at Jacob\u2019s Pillow and on Pilates\u2019 former Becket property. In addition to the bungalows, Gallagher wants to open his Pilates Museum to the public, and he has begun offering on-site classes inspired by Pilates and his original equipment.<\/p>\n Jacob\u2019s Pillow invited Gallagher to teach a weekly Pilates Morning Class, beginning in 1998. The Pillow kept inviting him to return until the COVID pandemic shuttered the campus. Gallagher was invited back for the 2023 season, but he did not teach at the Pillow during more recent summers.<\/p>\n Once the Pillow built new housing that could accommodate guests in the off season, Gallagher teamed up with the Pillow to host a semi-annual Pilates at the Pillow\u00ae conference in the off season beginning in 2018.<\/p>\n Pilates at The Pillow\u00ae invited Carlino to speak at their September 2021 conference. Attendees were in tears from Carlino\u2019s stories about coming home from the war and meeting Pilates. Eilaine Ewing, owner of Rhinebeck Pilates, said, \u201cWhen he stood up out of his wheelchair and said that he could do that because of Joe Pilates, and his story about coming back from the war, people were really touched by that.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlino returned to Pilates at The Pillow\u00ae in April 2022 to again tell a new generation of Pilates devotees what Joe Pilates was like as a person and as a trainer. Carlino died four months later on September 15, 2022, at the age of 96.<\/p>\n Pilates\u00a0returns to Lee<\/p>\n Dr. Kerry McGinn, a doctor of physical therapy, opened Yoga Lee on January 20, 2024, at 62 Main Street, one building over from where the Return to Life Club met 70 years earlier. McGinn said, \u201cWe take a modern science-backed approach to movement and yoga. This means our flows are steeped in tradition and science\u2014weaving together mind, body, and soul.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>Joseph Pilates instructing a mat class in the Tea Garden at Jacob\u2019s Pillow in 1942. Photo by Eric Sanford, courtesy of Jacob\u2019s Pillow Dance Festival Archives.<\/p>\n<\/a>Ann Hutchinson teaching Labanotation at Jacob\u2019s Pillow. Photo by John Lindquist, circa 1953. \u00a9 Houghton Library, Harvard University.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201c1943 Unidentified Students with Joseph Pilates and Ted Shawn.\u201d Identified individuals are: Joseph H. Pilates (far left), Ted Shawn (far right), Betty Jones, Ruth Alexander.Photo courtesy of Jacob\u2019s Pillow Dance Festival Archives.<\/p>\n<\/a>Left: Bednasium ad. Provided by The Pilates History Research Archive\u2122. Right: Joe Pilates\u2019 original Bednasium from his Becket studio. Photo by Joshua D. Bloom.<\/p>\n<\/a>From left: Joseph Pilates, unknown subject, unknown subject, Carol Lynn, Mary Campbell, unknown subject, and Jeanette Schlottman on the ground in the Tea Garden at Jacob\u2019s Pillow. Sign reads, \u201cWelcome to Jacob\u2019s Pillow, International Dance Festival and School.\u201d Photo from the Mary Campbell Collection, Texas Woman\u2019s University.
\nEast Lee Package Store<\/p>\n<\/a>East Lee Package Store and old Amoco station, East Lee. 1970. Name on Item: Peter Scolforo. Photo courtesy of the Lee Library Historical Collection.<\/p>\n<\/a>An original Joe Pilates Reformer from his Becket studio. Photo by Joshua D. Bloom.<\/p>\n<\/a>Allen\u2019s Mobile Home Park, owned by the late George Allen, located across the street from the East Lee Package Store. Photo by Joshua D. Bloom, Aug. 8, 2025.<\/p>\n<\/a>Screenshot from a 2022 interview of Paul Allen with Sean Gallagher and Elaine Ewing at the former Becket studio of Joseph Pilates on Pilates Source\u00ae YouTube channel \u00a9 2022 Richtone Design Group LLC.<\/p>\n<\/a>Anthony \u201cTony\u201d Carlino. Photo via Legacy.com, published with permission of the Carlino family.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cMain Street barber Tony Carlino displayed a picture of Lee High\u2019s triple crown winners of 1949-50 and several trophies the team collected in that era. The window of his shop mirrors the old block across the way.\u201d In Florence Consolati\u2019s book \u201cSee All the People.\u201d Published with permission of Deidre Consolati.<\/p>\n<\/a>Tony Carlino working on Pilates\u2019 equipment. Photo courtesy of Cathy Strack. Picture on the left can be can found in her book \u201cGet to Know Joe Pilates.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>\u201cJoseph H. Pilates in his eightieth year,\u201d photographed at his Becket studio. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1961.<\/p>\n<\/a>Tony Carlino with Joseph Pilates. Photo courtesy of Cathy Strack and found in her book \u201cGet to Know Joe Pilates.\u201d
\nReturn to Life Club opens on Main Street<\/p>\n<\/a>Ben Slaminsky during World War II, on the left with two other members of the Army\u2019s 106th Division: Joe Gaherty from Lee on the right and an unidentified man from Connecticut in the middle. Photo courtesy of Marcia Slaminsky and published with her permission.
\n<\/a>Ben Slaminsky\u2019s signed copy of \u201cReturn to Life\u201d by Joseph Pilates. The Return to Life Club in Lee was named after this book. Photo courtesy of Marcia Slaminsky and published with her permission.<\/p>\n<\/a>Ben and Ruth Slaminsky, 1952. Photo courtesy of Marcia Slaminsky and published with her permission.<\/p>\n<\/a>Peter Shaker with an early television in his shop garnering the interest of the town\u2019s children. Photo from of \u201cSee All the People\u201d by Florence Consolati.<\/p>\n<\/a>Screenshot of 92-year-old Tony Carlino pointing to the second-floor location of Pilates\u2019 Return to Life Club above Ben\u2019s, May 8, 2019. Published with permission of Pilatesology. The full video interview with Tony Carlino is available at Pilatesology.com.<\/p>\n<\/a>Screenshot of 92-year-old Tony Carlino on May 8, 2019, with Alisa Wyatt, founder of Pilatesology, in front of the building that housed the Return to Life Club. Published with permission of Pilatesology. The full video interview with Tony Carlino is available at Pilatesology.com.<\/p>\n<\/a>Slaminsky\u2019s signed copy of \u201cReturn to Life.\u201d Photo via Facebook. Published with the permission of Marcia Slaminsky.<\/p>\n<\/a>Sean Gallagher teaching a Pilates class at Jacob\u2019s Pillow. From an article, \u201cPilates at the Pillow: Keeping the Tradition Alive,\u201d by Emma Garber, published by Jacob\u2019s Pillow in July 2022. Published with the permission of Jacob\u2019s Pillow Dance Festival Archives.<\/p>\n<\/a>Pilates at The Pillow\u00ae attendees from around the world gather between the original pillars that Joseph Pilates placed at the entrance of his driveway, currently preserved and maintained as part of Sean Gallagher\u2019s Pilates Museum. \u00a9Richtone Design Group LLC.
\n<\/a>Pilates at The Pillow\u00ae attendees from around the world gather in front of Joe Pilates\u2019 original Berkshires studio, now fully restored as Sean Gallagher\u2019s Pilates Museum\/Studio. \u00a9Richtone Design Group LLC. Photo courtesy of Elaine Ewing from Rhinebeck Pilates.<\/p>\n<\/a>Tony Carlino being interviewed by Sean Gallagher at the 2021 Pilates at The Pillow\u00ae conference demonstrating how Joe Pilates instructed him to attempt the Teaser position upon their initial meeting. Screenshot of a video by Elaine Ewing and published with her permission.<\/p>\n