Susan Bailey balances on a slack line during a class at Highland Lake Yoga on Friday. The owner, Fred Brown, has decided to close his yoga studio after 14 years in business.

FLAT ROCK Friday was the last day of yoga and meditation classes at Highland Lake Yoga, as the studio has closed to benefit both the families of the building's owner and the yogis.

Highland Lake Yoga has operated for 14 years out of a cottage-style building on a plot of garden-covered land originally part of the Highland Lake community in historic Flat Rock. With chicken coops at either end of the building, flower boxes on the windows, tall pine trees and a white peacock that visited regularly, the studio offfered a secluded haven for meditation.

But it was also one room of the cottage housing the landowner's aging mother, who needs continuing care and a space for her resident caretakers to live.

Kerry Lindsey established the Highland Lake community in 1985, and a few years later brought his parents to the cottage, where his mother, Treska Lindsey, raised goats and chickens and planted bountiful gardens.

Jack and Linda Grup now own the 26 acres belonging to the Highland Lake Inn & Resort, while Treska Lindsey continues to reside on land owned by the Lindsey family.

Though Highland Lake Yoga isn't technically part of the resort, it has been open to the inn's visitors, as well as residents of the nearby Highland Lake neighborhoods and rental cottages.

Fred Brown, who has practiced yoga for 45 years and taught for the past 40, began Highland Lake Yoga at the studio in 2000 and introduced gravity-defying techniques to individuals as part of their yoga and stretching routines.

Brown said the inversion swing turns gravity around, allowing users to position their bodies in poses they wouldn't normally be able to sustain right side up. This helps them move all their bodies' joints in their maximum ranges of motion, which is one of the practices of yoga, he said.

A one-inch slack line stretched taught across the room was used for practicing one's balance with or without the help of handles hanging from the ceiling.

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Highland Lake Yoga closes; tradition continues