Shopping in Lexington

In Poland, Eddie Balcerzak raced professionally and coached Warsaw's KKS Polonia Cycling Club. He continued on this career trajectory in the United States. In 1985, he found employment with the 7-Eleven cycling team, which subsisted entirely on Slurpies, and then linked up with U.S.A. Cycling. While working for the team, he helped the athletes cycle to a silver medal in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics and clinch gold in the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

Today, as the owner of South Lake Cycles, Balcerzak shares his wisdom with a new generation of cyclists. He works alongside bicycle mechanics and pro coaches who outfit customers with all the equipment they'll need to race a triathlon or take a joy ride on an aircraft carrier.

When the recession hit, Sheri Hood responded by founding Our Hands Together: a marketplace that supports local artisans and strengthens their community ties. Inside the store, wares from more than 60 merchants radiate personality from their own booths. Shelves display an eclectic range of media, collecting jewelry and blown glass alongside paintings, handbags, and crocheted pieces. Handmade and utterly unique, many works have been assembled from recycled or repurposed materials, a practice that also inspired the market's Trash-to-Treasure art festival and foster home for used paintbrushes.

Though each artisan brings his or her own vibrant contribution to Our Hands Together, Lake Murray magazine asserts that "the community spirit is its real ambiance." Sheri lets area children and teens rent a plot for their art next to the professionals, and several classes scheduled per month welcome students of all ages to shape their own opera.:m]]

Philip Reese always looks forward to summer, a time when local lawns transform into green canvases for the pointillism of bright flowers and the watercolor strokes of a tree blowing in the breeze. For more than 25 years, his nursery has helped lawns—and even cubicles and windowsills—achieve this artful metamorphosis by sourcing more than 600 varieties of indoor and outdoor plants. Seasonal plants, from summer’s fragrant flowers to fall’s fresh herbs, ship in batches from the greenhouse’s central Florida office, which has access to more than 8,000 nurseries and some of the healthiest known plants in the Milky Way. The nursery also raises landscape plants ranging from 4-inch shrubs to 16-foot palm trees.

In addition to their verdant inventory, Reese’s Plants is dedicated to assembling a staff of green-thumbed folks who can help customers plant container gardens, design landscapes, and troubleshoot plant woes. They also watch over a stock of rental plants, which they've lent out to such notable events as the South Carolina Governor’s Inaugural Ball, the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987, and the annual gala for honeybees.:m]]

Elephant ears, angel’s trumpets, and japanese maples are just a few of the tropical and shade plants Tall Pines Landscaping, LLC procures to enliven lawns. The landscaping outfit plots these exotic varieties next to more traditional trees and shrubs, tending to green spaces with a variety of professional landscaping services that range from routine yard maintenance to more extensive installation and construction work. Whether melding gardens into colonial-themed displays or laying the groundwork for a fishpond that grants wishes, the landscaping team prefaces each task with a thorough consultation to get to know the client and his or her property.

It takes Lord Eye Center's opticians one hour to produce a pair of prescription glasses. Working at an onsite lab, they fit frames from more than 30 designers, using an electronic tracing device to render the thinnest lenses possible. The shop's optometrists can also prescribe various types of contact lenses, from continuous wear and disposable to bifocals and colored lenses. Dr. Whit Lord, owner of Lord Eye Center, scouts out the latest cornea-hugging designs as a member of several advisory panels for contact-lens manufacturers.

With locations in 10 states across America, Stanton Optical helps clients everywhere from Georgia to California achieve better vision. Its shelves are stocked with more than 3,000 frames and sunglasses from high-end brands, including Coach, Calvin Klein, and Armani. Full-service on-site labs help optometrists immediately craft glasses and tend to monocle-cloning experiments without the delay of sending eyewear elsewhere.