Say the price out loud
Estimates are written, line-item, and delivered before treatment, not at checkout. If a number would change, everything stops until we have talked.
About the studio
First came the windows. The dentistry followed.
In 1912 this building stitched workwear for half the Midwest, and its garment floor was lit by a band of high clerestory windows so the stitching would be exact. We kept the windows, and the standard.
House rules, posted where we can see them
Grade, do not upsell
Every finding is graded: fix now, watch closely, or leave alone. "Watch closely" is a real category here, and most things live in it.
Respect the calendar
Online booking, digital intake, early chairs, Saturday hours, and visits that start on time. Your afternoon is not our buffer.
No lectures
Whatever shape your teeth are in, you will not be scolded for it. You showed up; that is the part that matters.
How a visit actually feels
You are greeted by name, because your intake arrived before you did. The exam happens on a screen you can see, in words you already know. Anything we find gets a grade and a price, in writing, before anyone picks up a handpiece.
And when we say a visit takes fifty minutes, we scheduled sixty. The extra ten belong to your questions.
Plan your first visitThe doctors
Who you will actually see
Dr. Elena Novak, DDS
Founder · General & cosmetic dentistry
Dr. Novak opened Clerestory in 2019 after eight years in a high-volume group practice taught her exactly what she did not want: seven-minute exams, treatment plans printed before the patient sat down, and a waiting room everyone dreaded. She found a 1912 garment-district building with a band of clerestory windows, kept the light, and rebuilt everything else.
Her clinical work leans conservative: she is prouder of the veneers she has talked patients out of than the ones she has placed. Patients with dental anxiety are her specialty; she budgets double time for first visits and means it.
- Training
- DDS, UMKC School of Dentistry · BS Biology, Kansas State University · Spear Education, continuing studies in esthetics
- Off hours
- Throws pottery badly but enthusiastically at a Crossroads studio two blocks from the practice. The waiting room mugs are hers; she asks that you be kind about them.
Dr. Arjun Mehta, DDS, FICOI
Restorative & implant dentistry
Dr. Mehta is the studio’s engineer. He plans implant cases the way a good architect plans a staircase: on screen, at full scale, with the load paths worked out before anyone lifts a tool. He joined Clerestory in 2021 and brought the in-studio mill with him.
He is known for drawing. Ask him why a cracked molar needs a crown instead of a filling and he will sketch the fracture mechanics on the back of your treatment plan until it makes sense. Patients keep the drawings.
- Training
- DDS, University of Iowa College of Dentistry · Fellowship, International Congress of Oral Implantologists · Cone-beam CT certification, advanced implant planning
- Off hours
- Rides the Cliff Drive loop most Sunday mornings and will defend Kansas City’s cycling scene to anyone from a "real" cycling city.
Dr. Marcus Bell, DDS
Pediatric dentistry
Dr. Bell spent ten years in pediatric hospital dentistry before joining Clerestory in 2022 to build its children’s program from scratch. His rule is that no child should ever be surprised at the dentist: everything gets demonstrated on Mr. Floss, the practice’s long-suffering plush hippo, before it happens to a person.
Parents mostly know him as the reason their kids ask when they get to go back. Kids know him as the man with the treasure drawer, which is the correct priority.
- Training
- DDS, UMKC School of Dentistry · Pediatric residency, hospital dentistry program · Certified, silver diamine fluoride & minimally invasive pediatric care
- Off hours
- Coaches a chaotic and beloved U-8 soccer team in Waldo. Season record: irrelevant, snack quality: elite.