Boomerang Kids

These Shaker High School graduates lived and worked in great cities. But they couldn’t stay away from Shaker Heights.

By Sharon Broussard

Drawn by family, community, and a yearning to recreate their own childhoods, these one-time Shakerites decided to boomerang and raise their children in the Fernway, Lomond, Mercer, and Onaway neighborhoods.

They were lured by several things – families who could help them raise their children, comfortable housing, good schools, and great childhood memories. They found all that and more, including neighbors who will even give you a break on a house during a seller’s market.

Here’s how four families who returned to Shaker put it. In their own words.

Once Lindsay (Holloway) Kinney, who graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 2005, and her husband Aaron, who graduated in 2009, found out she was pregnant, these Shaker graduates started thinking about leaving Columbus and returning to the area.

Not that they didn’t like Columbus. It was booming in the summer with festivals and events. High school and college football filled the fall. But the Kinneys had few friends in Ohio’s capital which made it “kind of isolating,” says Lindsay.

So returning to Shaker became a priority. They had parents eager to help with the baby and both had great memories of Shaker. Lindsay liked attending Shaker High and being in the high school band. Meanwhile, Aaron played baseball and sang in the choir.

“It just seemed like a good baseline. A good place to start,” says Lindsay, who works remotely for Nationwide Insurance Company.

But there weren’t many homes available in Shaker in the summer of 2021 so they worked remotely from their parents’ homes and stayed on high alert for a home for sale. After all, baby Matthew was due in November and they wanted to be settled in by then. “Can you imagine that summer?” asks Aaron, a manager in the Department of Community Development for the City of Cleveland.

It just seemed like a good baseline. A good place to start.

They got lucky when Lindsay’s father, who lives in the Mercer area, was out on a walk and discovered that a neighbor was planning to move. The Kinneys talked to the neighbor and the family sold the home to them instead of putting it on the market. They were ecstatic – and so were their parents. “I think the parents both put up a lot of prayers. My folks definitely wanted us to stay,” says Aaron.

“They couldn’t unpack us fast enough,” adds Lindsay. “You have never seen a house set up in one day.” They both laugh.

“We had a grounds crew here. Dad was outside. Our moms were here,” says Lindsay. “When they left that day, we lived here. The sofa was here. Dishes were in the cabinet, food in the refrigerator. One day. They were great.”

Rachel Hutt, who graduated from Shaker in 2001, and her wife, Nikki Marks, were working in Washington, D.C. when Hutt became pregnant and they decided they wanted a place that was family friendly and less costly than the skyrocketing prices in the D.C. area.

Rachel thought of returning to Shaker where her parents live, but she wanted to be fair to her wife, who grew up in the Maryland area. So she held back while her spouse did her own research.

Their shared conclusion? “Shaker was the best option for us in terms of the quality of the public schools, the racial diversity of the town and the schools, and also being close to family,” says Rachel, whose mother was a boomerang Shakerite as well.

They moved to Onaway in 2018. They have no regrets. “D.C. was wonderful,” says Rachel. “It was a wonderful place to live for that phase of my life, but we are very happy to be where we are now in this stage of life.”

We are very happy to be where we are now in this stage of life.

More family has followed Rachel, Nikki, and their twin preschoolers, including Rachel’s brother and his wife who moved to Shaker. Her mother-in-law left the D.C. area for Beachwood. “We have expanded the Cleveland population,” she says with a laugh.

The city hasn’t disappointed them. “The thing that is most noticeable, most prominent is just the wonderful sense of community in our neighborhood and the way that kids run between each other’s yards and the way we really do know our neighbors here,” says Rachel. “Our block has Pizza Fridays in the summer and there is just a real sense of community.”

Rachel works remotely as an associate director for a national social sector consulting company called Community Wealth Partners. “I got to keep the job that I like from the comfort of my home in Shaker,” she says – while Nikki is an advancement associate for the Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School.

The couple is already thinking about sending the twins to Shaker schools and being “part of the ongoing project of striving for racial equity in a public school system,” she says. “We know it’s not perfect but we are ready to throw ourselves into making that work.”

Buying a home in Shaker Heights was “a no-brainer” to Kevin Armwood, a 2005 Shaker grad, whose mother was one of seven children who attended Shaker schools and who has had a relative in the schools since 1980 and a relative in the city since the 1940s.

He moved around after graduating from Howard University, living in Washington, D.C., Cleveland Heights, and Mayfield Heights. But marriage to Ashley, who works for Penske Corp., and two children made him decide to buy a home in Shaker Heights in 2022.

Shaker’s racial and economic diversity showed him how to get along with everyone and that’s something he wanted for his children, Jordin, 9, and Kevin, Jr., 3, says Kevin, who is in sales.

“You have every spectrum here. It really boosts you when you go to the real world because you are able to operate in any situation. It really made me a well-rounded adult – so I want that same thing for my children,” he says.

Their Lomond neighborhood has been great. “I feel like it is more of a community, not just where I live. I know my neighbors. My daughter walks to (Lomond) school and everybody on my street are friends,” he says. He recalls that when they first moved into their home some neighbors brought over baked goods from a farmers’ market. Another neighbor loaned him a tool when he was out working in his yard.

It really made me a well-rounded adult – so I want that same thing for my children.

And he feels comfortable in a city that welcomes diversity. “We really wanted to be in the kind of community where neighbors are welcoming and with people who are thriving and trying to do well,” he says. “They want to be around people who don’t necessarily look or live the same way that they do and they are accepting of that.”

Kevin is also surrounded by family. The grandparents are nearby and are able to watch their son during the day. His brother also lives in Lomond.

And he too loves the Van Aken District, which is a 15-minute walk from his home. “It’s becoming an area where everything that I need is right here.”

Rob Markt, Shaker class of 2001, and his wife, Sarah, loved Boston – the restaurants, the parks, the busy city life – so much that they didn’t want to leave. But the city didn’t love them back.

Home prices were “ridiculous,” he says. In addition, Sarah, who was then a cancer researcher, was looking at a short list of universities for her next position and Case Western Reserve University was one of the schools. They moved back to Shaker in 2018 because one of their priorities was being close to family and, Sarah who is from Buffalo, got a job at Case.

He is glad it turned out that way. “I had such a wonderful upbringing here,” says Rob, whose father also boomeranged back to Shaker Heights and now lives here.

I had such a wonderful upbringing here.

Still, Rob, an executive recruiter for a research institution, didn’t insist upon Shaker. He waited for Sarah, now a data scientist for a pharmaceutical company, to make up her own mind about moving to Fernway. “We did the real estate tour. We looked in Cleveland Heights and we looked in Solon. I didn’t want to push my preferences for Shaker too much, but she came to the same conclusion on her own,” he says.

In the end, they chose Shaker because “you can have a big, nice house here for a reasonable amount of money,” he says. “And that is fundamentally not true on the East Coast.”

Strong public schools were important to the couple as well – in part because Sarah’s parents worked as public school educators in Buffalo, says Rob. They send their two children, Cameron, 9, and Caroline, 6, to Fernway School. “I think we wanted great public schools and a reasonable cost of living. It was a lot of trying to repeat our childhoods.”

Shaker is even providing them with some Boston vibes now that the Van Aken District is open, he says. “It’s amazing how things have panned out to be a lot more like our city life in Boston. We can walk to the Van Aken District, to restaurants, and bars. We were really living the city life in Boston and we were hesitant about doing suburban life.”

Not any longer.

Originally published in Shaker Life, Summer 2024.