Shopping in Sylvania

A catnapper’s paradise awaits at Michigan Discount Mattress, where dozens of napping slabs await trial dozes. The mattress menagerie is populated with a variety of species, including beds woven from memory foam, natural latex, viscose, and soy-based natural foam. Though they range from soft, pillow-top styles to ultrafirm cement blocks, each mattress comes from a quality brand, such as Corsicana, Restonic, and Nature’s Sleep.

Modern Skate & Surf’s alternative-sports shop was founded in 1979 and has since hosted events frequented by Olympic and professional athletes—including superstar Tony Hawk—as well as earned a feature as Best Snowboard Shop in 2012 from Real Detroit Weekly. In Modern Skate Park's world-class, 60,000-square-foot Royal Oak skate park—one of the largest facilities of its kind in the US—skateboards grind across rails or glide over jumps, and inline skaters whiz over obstacles and BMX bikes hang in midair. Customers can build on their extreme-sports skills in clinics and lessons or rent out the facility for parties or high-speed chases. Committed to supporting the next generation of extreme athletes, Modern Skate Park offers discounts to students who bring in report cards sporting A’s and B’s.

In addition to the skate park, Modern Skate & Surf also maintains a East Lansing store that stocks snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding, skating, and protective gear to facilitate exciting adventures.

Geology guru Bill Rotay stocks The Golden Apple's shelves with sterling silver and semiprecious-gemstone jewelry, drawing from his University of Michigan degree and lifelong adoration of sparkling baubles. The shop's name alludes to the Greek myth that amber was harvested from the garden of Hesperides, where immortality-bestowing golden apples grew. Over the course of more than a decade, the store's original, predominantly amber, inventory blossomed to include a collection of Chinese freshwater pearls, sterling silver, and gemstones from Thailand, Mexico, Bali, and India. The Golden Apple also peddles a variety of mineral rocks and pottery, as well as fossils of ancient organisms and Betamax tapes.

Steven Michael Lesse, who co-owns Abracadabra Jewelry & Gem Gallery with his wife Katherine, began crafting fine jewelry in the 10th grade, and refined his craft as a bachelor of fine arts student at Wayne State University. Since 1974, Abracadabra Jewelry & Gem Gallery has created original fine jewelry and wedding bands from aquamarines and emeralds, rubies and sapphires, garnets, opals, pearls, and an extensive selection of diamonds. Today, Lesse and his staff, which includes two full-time goldsmiths and five jewelry designers, create all jewelry from custom eco-metals, which are made in-store or exclusively for the store. Jewelry craftsmen work with customers to design, sketch, and construct custom pieces based on photographs, descriptions, or trips to Mordor, and specialize in one-of-a-kind classic and Celtic-inspired wedding bands. Based on the company's nearly 40-year tradition of serving the community, AnnArbor.com noted that “it is easy to see why customers keep coming back.