Home Shopping Network watchers know Peter Kilcullen from years selling products on television, but the show host just opened a new business intended to keep people moving and in shape. Club Pilates Braden River, the first of three studios Kilcullen is opening in the area with business partner Gary Keith, just opened Friday in Bradenton. He hopes the new business helps bring the Hollywood-adored workouts to the masses. “We’re making Pilates available to everyone,” he says.

Affiliated with the national Club Pilates franchise, Kilcullen says he wants to make the well-known routine affordable and accessible. The studio boasts a dozen reformers, the main piece of equipment used in Pilates, as well as other gear like the EXO chair, but offers a variety of membership packages to appeal to consumers at all levels of interest. 

The Club Pilates brand launched in 2005, and boasts that it has now served over 2.2 million workouts at locations across the country.

Kilcullen sees merit in the workout, originally designed by Joseph Pilates in the early 20th century, because it strengthens the core in a way that also helps relieve stress. By setting up the gym, he says the studio helps provide the benefits of both a class structure and personal trainer. 

Kilcullen came to be a Pilates studio owner after befriending Keith, whose children play baseball with Kilcullen’s kids. Keith boasts a financial background while Kilcullen developed a strength in sales working at HSN, where he has worked as a product spokesperson since 2001, specializing in outdoor products and goods. Keith and Kilcullen decided to invest in a franchise business so they could take a proven business plan into the marketplace. “This is a simple model, and they [Club Pilates] have over 200 locations,” Kilcullen says. “It’s successful because people love the concept.”

With the Lockwood Commons location now operating, Kilcullen says he and Keith are already in talks with Benderson Development to open a Pelican Plaza location in Sarasota, and are scouting locations for a third Club Pilates to open in the region as well. 

While Kilcullen continues to sell wares on HSN, he says he knows his days as a television spokesman won’t last forever. He wants to have a business of his own, and the new studio could be the first in an empire. “There’s nothing like owning my own business,” he says. "That was a major goal for Gary and I and our families.”