Things to Do in Westlake

Named among the top five local craft stores by Fox 8 City Voter, the shop serves as a workshop for burgeoning crafters, as well as a gift shop and a source for inspiring seasonal project ideas. Staff artists teach workshops in three crafting genres: jewelry, housewares, and needle arts, offering a well-rounded curriculum that helps students with all-around constructive knowledge. Just as fish parents drop their babies into the water to teach them how to swim, teachers instill the fundamentals of handicraft by walking students through their first project during classes. Inside the eclectic gift shop, more than 65 local artists display handmade loot such as purses, hair accessories, pottery, and greeting cards, each unique in design. The community-minded store also encourages crafters of all skill levels to gather under its roof, whether to trade inspiration, project ideas, or swap unneeded craft supplies.

All year long, Ohio ATV World hands over the keys to a stable of well-maintained Suzuki, Yamaha, and Polaris all-terrain vehicles that purr beneath riders as they wind down through 12 miles of trails in Hocking Hills Nature Trails. In rain, sleet, snow, or sun, attentive staff members provide helmets before indoctrinating off-road skills into beginners and experts, who can zip through trail barrels and ramps atop their four-wheelers. Off the beaten path, Ohio ATV World arranges group outings and birthday-party activities, such as scavenger hunts set amid the park’s scenic foliage and natural wildlife.

When a performance studio stages The Sound of Music as its first production only months after opening, you know it means business. For the staff of Olmsted Performing Arts, their dedication to developing students' acting skills and hunger for creative expression continues to generate inspiring performances, whether their protégés pay homage to a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical or dazzle audiences with song-and-dance numbers from Footloose, a rousing tale about the adventures of a barefoot podiatrist.

While theater plays a large part in the curriculum, it isn't the only focus within Olmsted Performing Arts. The center’s dance academy fine-tunes steps in a variety of styles, its music-education program teaches voice and piano lessons, and its new gymnastics program encourages children to express themselves through movement rather than conceiving abstract poems in their alphabet soup.