Strong Form, Soft Power: How LaBarre Pilates Built a Cult of Confidence in Palm Beach

Stepping into LaBarre on South County Road, my first impression is intention. The studio reads like a calm, neutral living room rather than a warehouse. I was fourteen the first time I attended one of Jacqueline Bevilacqua’s meticulously designed workouts, and ever since, I’ve been hooked. Jacqueline designed LaBarre the way she would her own home – welcoming enough to make you return tomorrow, exacting enough to make you stronger by next week.

A former competitive gymnast, cheerleader, and dancer who began Pilates at ten, Jacqueline speaks about the method less as a fitness trend than as a durable infrastructure. “Pilates has been the throughline,” she told me. From UCLA to Palm Beach, through launches, expansions, and contractions, it was the one practice she trusted to scale strength… physically and professionally.

The Problem Jacqueline Set Out to Solve

When Jacqueline moved back from Los Angeles, she saw a gap. Studios seemed interchangeable with their sterile spaces, copy-paste programming, and instructors who could “look the part” without always coaching results. LaBarre’s counterproposal is deceptively simple: a beautifully built room, elite teachers, and uncompromising standards. The space matters, but the teachers matter more. “Culture over cosmetics,” she says – though I promise LaBarre quietly manages both. 

“When I moved back from Los Angeles, there was nothing like LaBarre in Palm Beach at the time. I saw a real need, and that’s what made me start.”

Leadership Without the Megaphone

Palm Beach is a discerning market. That can breed performance for performance’s sake. Jacqueline resists it. She doesn’t chase optics, unlimited promos, or packed schedules at the cost of quality. “The numbers have to make sense. Sustainability over spectacle.” She hires slowly, lets go decisively when misaligned, and gives her team real ownership until something requires her hand. It is a surprisingly gentle philosophy with a steel interior: respect the professional and protect the standard. 

Jacqueline’s management lessons were learned the hard way. She shared the bridge of powerful mentors in her early career, as well as the power she gained from her own missteps. She built for three studios, but COVID forced her to consolidate to one. All the while, she sold equipment to safeguard the nucleus. Years earlier, a West Palm expansion collapsed quickly and expensively. Both chapters coalesced in one shared lesson: check your ego, and keep the business healthy. Failure, Jacqueline argued, is not disqualification, but recalibration. 

“It’s not about bodies in the room. It’s about numbers making sense and quality.”

“Sometimes you have to shrink to survive.”

“Just because something looks easy doesn’t mean it is. The sophistication is in making the hard work invisible.”

Empowerment by Design

At LaBarre, empowerment is engineered. Thoughtful programming emphasizes progression you can feel within 8-12 weeks; cueing is designed to coach confidence, not vanity. “The most common trap for instructors,” she noted, “is performing for the mirror… hair, makeup, outfits … rather than serving the client in front of them.” Her standard for LaBarre stands firm: make the client stronger, not the instructor shinier.  

Quote - “Everyone has a piece of ownership in my business. I don’t believe in micromanagement.”

That standard extends to the physical plant. Lighting that flatters but doesn’t hide; mirrors that aid alignment but don’t overcrowd; playlists that support tempo, not ego. The unromantic details of clean maintenance, consistent layout, and a friendly front desk are treated as leadership decisions, not afterthoughts. The result is a studio that feels safe, serious, and importantly, repeatable. 

Jacqueline still teaches every format the studio offers. In a niche industry where many owners manage from the lobby, she sees being on the floor as non-negotiable. It keeps her fluent in her work, credible in auditions, and ready to step in when life happens. “If a junior instructor is scheduled at 6 a.m., I need to be willing to take that hour, too,” she says. It’s hard to argue with a leader who holds herself to the same call times. 

And she is equally hands-on with the numbers. For years, she carried the studio phone, and she still checks sales in near real time. She shared that the grind has seasons, and that she has worked Christmas for twelve years straight, but she is careful for to mythologize martyrdom. The goal isn’t to prove how hard she works, but to build a business that outlasts a single person’s stamina. 

One of Jacqueline’s most quietly radical practices is client boundaries. Palm Beach can be high-pressure, but when a client disrespects an instructor or the space, she is willing to end the relationship. It's simple: her principle isn’t about temperament, but mere operational hygiene. If the team isn’t protected, the product won’t be, either. In a service economy obsessed with saying yes, LaBarre’s selective nos may be its most sophisticated hospitality.

“If you don’t have a backbone here, they won’t respect you – and they won’t return.” 

Asked for her favorite leadership books, Jacqueline shrugs: she learns by observation, not playbooks. For her, this was done by taking classes across New York and California, watching what elevates a room, and noticing what deflates it. Her strategy was simple: to refine what she learned and bring the best back to Palm Beach. That observational discipline keeps LaBarre fresh without having to chase noise. It is also why her teachers are so unique… fewer buzzwords, more cues that actually land.

For young founders, her advice is straightforward: start small, test the market, expand only what earns its keep. The glamorous answer is scale, but the effective answer is sequence. 

What’s Next 

With two Palm Beach studios now integrated and humming, Jacqueline’s eye is on seasonal pop-ups, Aspen, or perhaps the Hamptons, where LaBarre’s blend of precision and polish could travel well. The move is less empire-building than ecosystem-sensing. Her vision distills to exploring where her community already migrates, then bringing a standard that is consistent, but not cookie-cutter. 

Palm Beach will tell you the truth, and it will do so quickly. The margin errors are slim, and the expectations are high. LaBarre’s longevity (seventeen years and counting!) read as a case study in quiet excellence. Build a room people love, set a bar instructors want to reach, say no when it preserves the yes that matters, and let the results speak without shouting. Empowerment is Jacqueline’s practice, repeated daily, rep by rep. 

LaBarre proves that in a market famous for appearances, substance is the ultimate luxury. 

“When there’s failure, the only person to blame is yourself.”

“You can’t deflect responsibility as a founder—you’re there to step in.”

“Just because things look easy doesn’t mean they are. That’s the sophistication of a good entrepreneur.”