Santa Barbara understands prime real estate.
We quantify it. Obsess over it. Compete for it. Ocean views. Mountain views. Walkability. School districts. Scarcity.
We know instinctively that location determines value.
But lately, I’ve realized some of the most valuable real estate in Santa Barbara is not measured in acreage or price per square foot.
It is measured in yoga mats.
More specifically: the exact location of your yoga mat in Elyse Grossman’s class.
Now before you judge me, understand this: I am extremely particular about where I practice.
Partly because I’m an Aries.
Partly because I’m perpetually late.
Partly because I possess a unique ability to manufacture unnecessary stress in situations entirely within my control.
Somewhere between self-sabotage, optimism, denial, and familiarity, I have spent years rolling into yoga classes like a woman entering a high-stakes real estate negotiation with five minutes left in escrow.
If I arrive twenty minutes or earlier to Elyse Grossman’s class, I can usually secure prime mat placement.
Twenty-one minutes late?
We’re rolling the dice.
Less than fifteen minutes before class begins?
That’s psychological warfare.
Time of day matters.
Season matters.
Weather matters.
The back row fills first. Corners disappear quickly. The coveted spots, not too close, not too exposed, enough breathing room but still connected to the energy of the room become increasingly rare as class approaches.
It’s Art of War meets Namaste.
'“This is my yoga mat. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”
And somehow, every single class, Elyse walks into the room and makes space anyway.
Not just physically.
Emotionally. Energetically. Spiritually.
She glides through the room rearranging mats with the precision of someone conducting an orchestra before the first note lands. A few inches here. A subtle adjustment there. A gentle invitation to the hesitant person lingering near the doorway wondering if there’s still room.
There is always room.
And maybe that is part of what Elyse teaches so beautifully alongside yoga itself: how to create space for people exactly as they arrive.
"Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don't be late
Take a rest as a friend"
-NIRVANA
I have heard Elyse talk about how much she loves teaching English. And I emphasize love because she emphasizes it. But after watching her teach, I don’t believe she simply loves teaching English.
I believe she is hopelessly devoted to it.
In love with it.
That devotion quietly reveals itself throughout class in the cadence of her voice, in the poetry she weaves into movement, in the way language and breath somehow begin dissolving into one another. Words stop feeling instructional and begin feeling lived.
Poetry becomes physical.
Movement becomes emotional.
Somewhere between literature, breathwork, and stillness, something opens.
Not dramatically. Quietly.
The kind of opening that sneaks up on you.
One of my favorite things about watching Elyse teach is observing how seamlessly she bridges intellect and embodiment. In a culture obsessed with productivity, appearances, and optimization, she reminds people to actually inhabit themselves.
To arrive.
Even if some of us arrive late.
I began practicing yoga more than twenty years ago. Like many people, I drifted in and out of it through different chapters of life. Work. Travel. Injury. Exhaustion. Scarcity. Excuses disguised as logistics.
For years, I convinced myself yoga was a luxury I could not afford.
What I eventually realized was that I could not afford to live without it.
About a year and a half ago, I returned to a committed practice, and it felt less like discovering something new and more like returning to a church I had abandoned.
My safe place.
My practice.
My prayer.
“And I thought that I saw, a light Shine,
I thought that I saw a light shine…”
- Alexi Murdoch
Yoga has become the place where I bring everything.
My hopes.
My gratitude.
My exhaustion.
My grief.
Especially grief.
The kind that settles into the body quietly after loss and never fully leaves. The kind you learn to carry rather than cure.
I bring my darkness there too. The ugly thoughts, the anxiety, the self-judgment, the parts of myself I would rather outrun than sit beside.
Sometimes my body arrives before my spirit does.
Sometimes I am physically present while my mind feels scattered somewhere far outside the room.
Still, I show up.
“In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around
But I’ll stand my ground
And I won’t back down.”
— Tom Petty
Over time, I have realized yoga is not about becoming someone else. It is about surviving yourself long enough to become present again.
And presence, in Santa Barbara, may be the rarest luxury of all.
As the founder of Next Best Home, I spend much of my professional life talking to families about housing, aging, transitions, and what makes people feel safe.
We talk endlessly about homes, equity, downsizing, financing, assisted living, and long-term planning. But underneath all those conversations is a much deeper question:
Where do I feel grounded?
What space still feels like mine?
What kind of environment allows me to exhale?
Because “prime real estate” changes meaning as we move through life.
At one stage, it means prestige.
At another, convenience.
At another, financial security.
And eventually, for many people, prime real estate becomes something profoundly human:
Safety.
Calm.
Familiarity.
Peace.
A place where your nervous system softens.
A place where you are allowed to simply be.
Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ynez Mountains, Santa Barbara has always sold beauty. But what makes this place truly valuable is not the scenery. It is the rare pockets of humanity that still exist within it.
The spaces where people feel seen.
Studios like this.
Practices like this.
People like Elyse.
“Let my gardens speak for me when I am gone.”
— Emory Hall
Perhaps that is what we are all really doing in this life.
Creating small sacred spaces for one another.
A classroom.
A conversation.
A yoga studio.
A moment of stillness.
A carefully negotiated rectangle of floor space where someone can lay down a mat, breathe deeply, and remember who they are again.
I realize there is some risk in writing this article publicly. Revealing the reality of Santa Barbara yoga mat economics could absolutely jeopardize my future access to prime placement.
Sometimes you have to roll the dice.
