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For two jewelry stores, sparkling milestones

Two family-owned jewelry stores celebrate their longevity in a competitive business.

By CHRISTINA K. COSDON
Published December 12, 2005

CLEARWATER - Tastes have changed, new competition has emerged and downtown Clearwater has seen better days, but two family-owned and operated Clearwater jewelry stores have succeeded in evolving enough to celebrate their gold and diamond anniversaries.

Trickels Jewelers is 60 years old this year.

K.K. Smith & Sons is in its 50th year.

There are differences in these businesses: K.K. Smith, for instance, has its own jewelers who create custom pieces on the premises. Trickels carries crystal, signed porcelain figurines and imported musical jewelry boxes.

But there's also a key similarity: a commitment to the business that spans generations.

"When you can survive the times and the competition, it's pretty amazing," said Norris Smith, 46, a gemologist and the founder's son. He and a brother and nephew design and make custom jewelry at K.K. Smith.

"We have endured because we have changed with the times," said brother Kenny Smith, 60, the hand engraver in the family.

It also has required a commitment to staying close to downtown.

While many long-established Clearwater merchants have left downtown, Trickels Jewelers has stayed.

"People are always going to want nice things for special occasions," said Debbie King, who operates Trickels Jewelers with her mother, Lillian Trickel. Mrs. Trickel established the business in 1945 with her late husband, William, a jeweler and watchmaker.

But Mrs. Trickel's decision to stay downtown doesn't mean she hasn't criticized the city. She served for 30 years on the city's downtown development board and for four of those years as its chairwoman in her efforts to urge the city to fulfill promised improvements.

"I couldn't go; I'm dedicated to downtown," said the octogenarian. "And I love the people. I wouldn't be working this many years if I didn't like the people."

In 1980, Mrs. Trickel found a solution to the downtown district's nagging parking problem.

She and her husband bought a 7,000-square-foot building with a parking lot at Cleveland Street and Myrtle Avenue. (Their first store on Garden Avenue was 75 square feet.) Roger Flora is the jeweler on the premises. Sales last year totaled $500,000, Mrs. Trickel said.

The Smith brothers' father, Kenneth K. Smith, 84, started K.K. Smith in 1955. He retired in August because of health problems, but his wife, Hazel, still works. She restrings all the pearl and other necklaces. A third Smith brother and jeweler, Jerry, 55, worked in the business until 10 years ago, when he suffered a back injury.

For Kenneth Smith's entire life, jewelry has been one of his passions. Of his many interesting assignments, one is often retold by family members. During an apprenticeship at a New York City jewelry firm, he was given a museum piece to repair - a gold necklace that had once been worn by Cleopatra.

"I think they were testing me," he said, laughing.

Norris Smith described business this year as "awesome." Sales this year are close to $1-million, he said.

K.K. Smith & Sons was in its own building in downtown Clearwater for 35 years before moving because of the parking situation.

It relocated to a shopping center on Highland Avenue in Clearwater. In 1998, K.K. Smith purchased a 4,000-square-foot building with an ample parking area at Rogers Street and Missouri Avenue, less than a mile from downtown Clearwater.

"When Maas Brothers department store closed, there was no parking and no customer draw," said Kenny's son, Jason, 33, whose specialty is platinum casting. The former Maas Brothers store now houses Harborview Center and Stein Mart.

"If Clearwater had done what they talked about, downtown could have been another St. Armands Key," Kenny Smith said.

Customer service has been key to the business's growing success.

"We have four generations coming in and buying from us - generations that have different tastes in jewelry," Kenny Smith said.

"We've gained trust through our long relationship with customer families," Norris Smith said. "We're in a major competition business. You connect with people and it makes a difference."

[Last modified December 12, 2005, 01:10:15]