Although part of a family that is clearly on a fast track, Cleo Liu Koppell is decidedly cool and calm – more focused on the muffin and yoghurt before her on a recent morning than any weighty issue of the day. That’s as it should be for a two-year-old with doting parents, two cats to keep at arms-length, and a reliable playmate to hang with just a few doors down Lafayette Avenue.
Cleo arrived in Bolton Hill by way of Mercy Hospital, born to Glory Liu and Stewart Koppell on a chilly January morning in 2024, and named after one of nine daughters of the Greek God Zeus. That Cleo (or Klio) became the Greek muse of history, often pictured in art with parchment scrolls or a book. Cleo is partial to books, held askew the way two-year-olds prefer.
Her parents, now in their mid-thirties, met at Stanford University during graduate studies, but before long they were in Boston. Glory, whose field is political theory and history, was at Harvard as a lecturer, while Stewart did post-doctorate work in physics at MIT. Then she got a job offer to join the leadership team at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Economy and Society (part of the SNF Agora Institute), leaving Stewart in Boston.
A colleague at JHU introduced Glory to Bolton Hill, where she found a rental rowhouse big enough to accommodate their small family and both sets of Cleo’s grandparents when they rotate in to visit. “It was big and we had almost no furniture, but we’ve come to love it, and the neighborhood,” said Glory. Among the first neighbors they met were 50-year residents Barry and Barbara Blumberg, who took them (and Glory’s Taiwanese-American mother) to a neighborhood potluck and introduced them to lots of Bolton Hill people.
“They (the Blumbergs) adopted us,” said Stewart , who grew up in Santa Fe and Austin and attended the University of Texas before heading to California. His Ph.D. is in applied physics, and he does post-doc research, working in the basement of the Stiel Silver building at a Hopkins lab. He also works remotely with a Boston-based startup company developing a new quantum light source. He plans to do that full-time starting in August, working from home. “It’s the first time I’ve considering leaving academia,” he said.
Glory is a southern California native, one of four children whose parents also have lived in Saudi Arabia and now are in Missouri. At home now with Cleo, she recently accepted a new job as an assistant professor in political theory at Georgetown University, commuting to D.C. and also working remotely. Cleo has had her first taste of “school” at a JHU daycare center. New friends told them how to get on waitlists for Bolton Hill Nursery and the swim-and-tennis club, and offered to host them at the pool.
“I love strolling around the neighborhood with Cleo,” Glory said. “Sometimes we go up to Sumpter Park or other parks. We pop in for spontaneous playtime with Konan, Cleo’s friend, and he and his mother come over to our house. I can’t imagine living such a great experience. When I pick Cleo up from daycare and head into the neighborhood now, she says, ‘almost home.”
–Bill Hamilton
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