Sapphire Creek Winery & Gardens
VIBRANT VENUES Local spots offer beauty, unique accommodations for ceremonies and parties
By Courtney Byrnes After the COVID-19 pandemic put many celebrations on hold in 2020, weddings and b’nai mitzvah began to return to venues in 2021 with fervency. This year looks to be no different, as venues expect rescheduled and newly planned celebrations alike to bring their spaces to life.
Radhika Reddy, founder and majority owner of Ariel International Center in Cleveland; David Rabinsky, director of social catering at The Ritz-Carlton in Cleveland; and Kathleen Dangelo, president and owner of Sapphire Creek Winery & Gardens in Chagrin Falls, are among those ready to welcome upcoming celebrations at their venues.
ARIEL INTERNATIONAL CENTER Located in a historic Cleveland warehouse with views of the lake, skyline and landmarks of the city, Ariel International Center offers a scenic venue to host a wedding ceremony, reception or b’nai mitzvah. “Ariel International Center accommodates about 350 people without a dance floor,” Reddy says, adding it accommodates up to 300 people with the dance floor. “And the beauty about it is it’s an old warehouse, red-brick building converted to an event space. The fourth floor, called the Skyline Lake Room, has the beautiful views of the Cleveland skyline on the west side, and on the north it looks out to the lake.” The Skyline Lake Room is the main venue available for rent, but celebrants can also add on the rooftop, often used for wedding ceremonies and cocktail hours. The third floor also has a lake view, serving as a backup for inclement weather, she says. Reddy also owns Ariel Pearl Center, Ariel Broadway Hotel and Ariel Ventures – a 100% women-owned and minority firm – as well as a community development financial institution, Ariel Economic Development Fund, which has invested in EventWorks4D, a hologram event technology company of which Reddy is CEO. With a hologram lounge on the first floor of Ariel International Center, Reddy’s partner and president of EventWorks4D, Joel Solloway, helped create a special bat mitzvah when he made a hologram of the celebrant to wow the guests. “He did the script with the mom and the kid and they created a hologram on the stage.” Reddy says. “And so as people came, they stopped in the hologram hall and saw her on the stage and they thought it was real – ‘cause the holograms look like real life.”
36 Celebrations SPRING 2022
The hologram lounge on the first floor of Ariel International Center. | Photo / Ariel International Center She notes how shocked people were when the girl walked out on stage to reveal the illusion. While adding a hologram version of yourself or as a couple can be expensive, it can definitely make any party unforgettable. EventWorks4D was also a part of creating the technology for recreating hologram Holocaust survivors with voice recognition at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, one of the first in the world, Reddy says (The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood also uses hologram-style technology to share the story of the late local Holocaust survivor, Stanley Bernath).
