Alecia and Arik Anderson and their dog Betty in their living room that overlooks the Shaker Heights Country Club golf course. Photos by Kevin Reeves.
Looking for the right moment to take the next step, a couple follows their son to Shaker Heights and creates a new home base.
By Sharon Holdbrook
For empty nesters Alecia and Arik Anderson, this past year has brought a change of address – and with that, the reinvention of their entire lifestyle.
In 2024, the couple sold their massive historic house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Now, they’re here in Shaker Heights, perched in a bright new seventh floor apartment at RAYE, the second phase of the Van Aken District.
In the big old Michigan house, when the Andersons would wake up to a rainy morning, the checking would begin. “We’d say, ‘We have to go check the roof leaks… We have to go check the insurance policy. We have to go check. We have to go check. We have to go check.’ And now we say, ‘We don’t have to check anything.’”
Alecia and Arik have traded Michigan for Ohio, home ownership for renting, six bedrooms for three, historic for new, home maintenance for concierge service, and a big yard for walkable-downtown energy.
Alecia is grateful for the years that she and Arik spent in stewardship of their historic home, but they were ready for a new, more carefree phase of life.
Sitting at her kitchen island, with dog Betty and cat Henry padding around and Arik nearby in the home office, Alecia seems perfectly at ease. To her left, floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the Van Aken District. To her right, through the living room, is a panoramic view of the golf course at the Shaker Heights Country Club.
“I’m so happy now,” she says.
It’s all about the timing
Alecia is from Ohio – she grew up in Put-in-Bay – but it was the Andersons’ son who lit the Cleveland spark in their family. The oldest of their three adult children, Conor and his wife Alexandra moved to Ohio City from Ann Arbor as a young couple. When they were expecting their first child, they made the move to the Fernway neighborhood here in Shaker.
For years, Arik and Alecia had been pondering their next move. Was the impending arrival of a grandchild a sign that it was finally time to pull up roots and start the next chapter? Would their son and his wife want help with the baby? The wheels were turning, but it wasn’t quite time yet.
Floor to ceiling windows overlook the Van Aken District, flooding the kitchen and dining room with natural light in the apartment’s open concept floor plan.
Then, before baby Otto turned two, the news came. Alexandra was pregnant with twins. Could the Andersons maybe think about making that move now? That was that. It was time: Alecia and Arik were on their way to Shaker Heights, too.
Now, Shaker is home base for the whole family. The Andersons’ three-year-old grandson comes to their apartment every Wednesday after preschool, and everyone’s close proximity means they can see new babies George and Anderson regularly.
“It’s fun. It feels very Chicago or New York City. It feels very lively … like an injection of energy.”
Alecia and Arik’s youngest adult child, Zoë, also has recently moved to Shaker Heights and lives on Winslow Road. That’s where the Andersons’ other son Reid stays when he comes to visit from Michigan, and everyone in the family is lobbying him to make a permanent move here, too.
Alecia says having (almost!) the whole family here in Shaker is ideal. As empty nesters used to having their own space, and as young people forging their own independence and new family identities, both generations are happy to be able to get together easily and yet have the comfort of having their own private homes.
For Alecia, pursuing family closeness was the thing that enabled her to let go of both the stress and the prestige of the grand old Michigan house. Everything became clear, and she realized what she needed to do. “Go be happy. Go be with your family. Go be where it matters. So, I let it go.”
Discovering RAYE, Exploring VAD
Once the Andersons decided to go beyond big-home life in Ann Arbor, the hunt began for the right apartment in Shaker Heights. Both Arik and Alecia work from home for their consulting business, Origin Medtech Advisors, so they knew they needed a home office. Since they also wanted to have a guest bedroom, they searched for the right three-bedroom fit.
After deciding on RAYE, the Andersons became one of its first tenants when they arrived in late 2024. Although they’ve not been there long, their sunny apartment feels layered, homey, and inviting. Alecia shows the generous full bath for each bedroom as well as spacious closets, and the balcony is set with a dining set for the warm months. Downstairs, tenants can store things like bicycles or holiday decorations. Alecia also mentions that they enjoy the building’s gym and the garden room. In the garden room, there are occasional building socials, but she and Arik sometimes just pop down on their own in the evening to relax with a drink.
The outdoor terrace is nestled along the outside walls of the Anderson’s living room, bedroom, and hallway – providing a private open air dining space with expansive views of the golf course.
With RAYE apartment sizes ranging from one-bedrooms to penthouses, Alecia says the building attracts interesting people of all kinds. She loves that she has neighbors of many ages, family configurations, professions, and origins. Everyone has a unique story: One neighbor is a cello teacher, another runs an art gallery, and yet another is a climber who moved to RAYE to be close to Shaker Rocks. Neighbors mingle at building events, but Alecia says the concierges downstairs also love to introduce residents to each other.
As a newcomer to the area, Alecia has been eager to meet new people. She and Arik have joined Christ Episcopal Church, just around the corner on Warrensville Center Road, and they’ve also been enjoying dinner and orchestra dates with new acquaintances. She remarks how gracious and welcoming she has found people to be in Shaker.
The Van Aken District has been a big part of Alecia and Arik feeling connected to their new home here. She loves to look out her home office window and see the Rapid train, or to walk outside to grab sushi at Kiln. “It’s fun, it feels very Chicago or New York City. It feels very lively … like an injection of energy.” At the same time, Alecia says how personal her new neighborhood feels, how friendly people are when she and Arik get their coffee or breakfast or shop for clothing. She tells the story of how her son needed a last-minute sport coat, and how the folks at Arch clothing store were closed but kindly opened up just for them to shop.
“The move definitely has been made softer for us by being right here in this spot,” Alecia says of the Van Aken District. “Being able to walk and be accessible to everything … this feels like it’s a new little downtown.”
The past year has been a huge change for the Andersons, and at the outset they weren’t sure how it would all work out in the end. There were so many unknowns, so many adjustments.
“If my head gets too busy, and I don’t want to be on my phone, and the world gets too much, I can just stand over here in the window and look out,” says Alecia from her seventh floor kitchen. “And I love it. I love it a lot more than I thought I would. I just went in a direction and put one foot in front of the other. And it’s been more than I expected.”
