How celebrity fitness trainer Ally Love created a health and wellness haven in her Jersey City apartment

MW How celebrity fitness trainer Ally Love created a health and wellness haven in her Jersey City apartment

By Karli Mullane

Love reveals the physical transformations she's made to her neutral-toned New Jersey comfort zone.

Peloton trainer and "Today" show contributor Ally Love is no stranger to spreading the gospel of health and fitness-however, she is now revealing how she has extended those teachings to her own New Jersey home, detailing how she's designed the elegant space to meet her wellness needs in every season of her life.

Love, 39, moved into the two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit in Jersey City, N.J., more than 15 years ago, and it's been an ideal home base ever since: central enough to be a short commute to Peloton's $(PTON)$ New York studio but far enough away from work so she can privately train, rest, and recover.

The home became a marital haven for Love and her husband, Andrew Hayes, after they tied the knot in 2021, evolving with the couple through every stage of their marriage. Together than have renovated and reorganized the space to suit their changing needs.

Surprisingly, given her storied career as a leading celebrity fitness trainer, Love does not have a designated workout room in her home-but there are pieces of Peloton equipment scattered throughout the dwelling.

The Scotch-Brite ambassador also finds plenty of other ways to integrate wellness into her daily routine at home, from incorporating movement into her morning cleaning routine to designing her spaces to serve as sanctuaries from her hectic day-to-day life.

In the latest installment of our Celebrity Sanctuary series, Love reveals the physical transformations she's made to her neutral-toned New Jersey comfort zone and shares how the space supports her well-being so she can confidently answer her signature workout session mantra-"Are you ready? Yes or yes?"-as she moves through life.

We've been in this apartment for over 15 years. It's a two-bedroom, two-bath. We actually live lower down in Jersey City, so it actually looks into New York and it's really beautiful.

I think sometimes living in New York City while I work in New York-and I lived in Chelsea for many years-one of the things that we forget is the view of New York City is pretty dope, so it's awesome.

When you walk in we have our kitchen-it's an open concept-and then a living room, and it's all windows that face New York City. We have a balcony, which was amazing during times when we had to stay inside. We were able to have some kind of reprieve to go outside.

In my living room, we have the [Peloton] bike and the rower next to the window, and then the guest room is where we have the tread, so I have all pieces of equipment in our apartment. The rower stands up so it doesn't take up any space. We have a column, so it's next to the column [with] the high ceiling.

We don't have a dedicated [workout] room; they're kind of spread out throughout the house. While it's not the biggest space, it is where we work out. My husband uses mostly the bike and the row because I teach on the bike, and then I use the tread. I tend to run most of the times or hike.

Then we have a guest room and guest bathroom, our primary bedroom and our primary bathroom, [and] walk-in closet.

I did a concept in our guest room, where I added a Murphy bed, and we have a desk. Then I added shelves and all-glass sliding doors for the closets and on the doors.

One of the things that I did-this is really funny-my husband went on a long work trip a few years ago, and I had wanted to update our home. I was like, "I kind of want new bookshelves," like all of these things. And he's like, "Yeah, we'll get to it, we'll get to it."

So what I end up doing, being really sneaky, the month before he told me he [had] to go to Asia for like a week, I organized. I bought so many things. I bought new furniture, new appliances. I did this whole overhaul. I came and I cleaned the entire space.

But he goes away, he's like, "We'll get around to it. You're right, we'll update things." He goes away to Asia for a work trip, and I cut my schedule as short as possible. I take an entire week and I update our entire house.

I have people come in, moving furniture out, moving furniture in, and I remember him coming in the front door from the airport. He opens the door, and he looks at it and he goes, "Wow." He didn't even say thank you! He goes, "Wow." I was like, "Oh, do you like it?" He goes, "It's nice."

Like, it had to adjust with him a little bit. He had to settle in that day, and then after, he's like, "You did a great job. This was very helpful and wonderful."

It's so funny because it was one of those things where I felt like I had to take initiative to create the space that I wanted to create in the timeframe that I had because if we did it together-because our lives are so busy-I knew it would take a lot longer.

My mother-in-law, she commissioned an artist in Trinidad to create a piece of artwork [that] she gifted us for our wedding when we got married. She was really proud of it, too. She's not really into home [decor], and so for her it was a really big deal.

I made sure as soon as we received it, that I got it framed up so we could put it on the wall. We FaceTime with her every Sunday so she can see it.

I think in terms of the space reflecting who we are, I think that's the key. I think I nailed it.

I also figured out that in seasons of your life, you attract that type of peace in different spaces. So for me, it's making sure that every space in my house is something that I think is a true reflection of me and my husband, is a true reflection of a place that I can walk into and feel comfort and peace, and knowing that sometimes, like, the living room will be the disaster zone.

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When you're transitioning to any capacity, or it's the holidays, like, you know this probably won't be your sanctuary because you've got gifts, you have all these things. You're traveling, you came back [at the] end of summer [so] the guest room is not going to be the sanctuary because that's where we're going to unpack all of our luggage.

Being able to not fall in love with one space is important to me because I do know as seasons of your life change, those spaces will be occupied-and sometimes occupied with a lot of stuff! That's the point of an apartment or a home, is for it to hold the stuff that you need to do the things you need to do.

I just made sure throughout the years that our apartment-and I go through it every five years of transition where I update it-that it is a reflection, and that if I sit in the living room or go in our primary bedroom, that I can find peace and feel more safe in that space.

One of the things that I would love is to have an island in the kitchen that funnels over into the living room.

We do have an open concept where there is a countertop, and then it's all open into the kitchen, but there's a column. And I'm like, "I just want to break this down." We've seen people in the building, like, knock this wall out so it can just be an open island counter.

And again, I've asked my husband and he's like, "Yeah, we'll get to it." So I'm waiting on him to leave on another work trip and give me a little more advance notice because I have to hire someone to come in and look at it and then do it.

I've been waiting for a few years for him to go away for a very extended, long period of time in advance so I can get that wall knocked down. That's something that I'd like to have, and I can just imagine when I do that he will be like, "This is interesting."

And then he's going to tell me which Scotch-Brite to use on the countertop so it doesn't scratch, like, I can just imagine it.

He's the one who [first] brought it home and was like, "This is the way we clean." He's very adamant about having the proper tools to do a good job in whatever you're doing, and that includes cleaning.

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One of the things that I recognized is, outside of getting up early in the morning when I have to teach a Peloton class at like 6 a.m., I usually get up and I created this habit unbeknownst to myself [of] cleaning the kitchen as soon as I wake up. It's the one space in the apartment that I love walking in and it's clean and it's amazing.

Most times I am an early bird. I get up around 5:30, 6 o'clock in the morning naturally. The first thing I do after I do my prayers is I end up going to the kitchen and [reorganize] the kitchen from the night before, like putting things away.

I put on the "Hamilton" [soundtrack], and the first half of "Hamilton" is how much time I give myself to clean a couple spaces. Once that's done, we're not getting into the second half, honey. Once we hit intermission, cleaning is done, and it's recognized as such for me because I know I only have a finite amount of energy.

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"Hamilton" always boosts my spirits, it always makes me feel good. I can belt to the top of my lungs while I'm cleaning. I kind of get lost in the visualization because, [if] you've seen it on TV or on Broadway, you know exactly what's happening when, and I'm such a fan of the show.

Another playlist that I listen to is country-pop. I love pop music. I fell in love with country through Peloton. And so I will put on a country-pop playlist any time I'm cleaning up. It's like that feel-good music that makes you tuned into what you're doing, and you're able to tune out from everything else, all the distractions.

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MW How celebrity fitness trainer Ally Love created a health and wellness haven in her Jersey City apartment

By Karli Mullane

Love reveals the physical transformations she's made to her neutral-toned New Jersey comfort zone.

Love, 39, moved into the two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit in Jersey City, N.J., more than 15 years ago, and it's been an ideal home base ever since: central enough to be a short commute to Peloton's (PTON) New York studio but far enough away from work so she can privately train, rest, and recover.