This SLO County jewelry store is closing after 42 years in business
San Luis Obispo County is losing another longtime jewelry store.
Tim McLean will close his McLean Jewelry shop at 180 N. Oceano Ave. in Cayucos after 42 years of designing, fabricating, casting and selling a wide variety of treasures.
The store’s last day is on Feb. 16, which will give his customers time to buy something special before Valentine’s Day.
McLean, who just turned 70, said that he plans to keep the Old Cayucos Bank Building that he lovingly remodeled into McLean Jewelry over a couple of decades, starting in 1978.
“I rented for 23 years and then bought it in 1991,” he said.
The jeweler said he plans to continue using the approximately 1,000-square-foot, four-room building as his studio, where he may accept a limited number of commissions for “certain people, my special customers.”
Some of those relationships go back for generations, McLean said.
In some cases, he’s created jewelry designs for customers, then for their children and then for their grandchildren. “Getting crossover with generations is pretty cool,” he said.
Cayucos business owner also a musician
McLean began honing his craft as a child watching his father and grandfather tinker with toys and widgets in their Oakland basement workshop.
Because McLean’s father worked for an airline, the family traveled around the world. In the process, McLean became fascinated by Asian art forms, Old World metalworking and master goldsmiths in Tehran — all of which ultimately would influence his work.
He specializes in intricate designs and special gemstones, such as Sri Lankan blue moonstones and demantoid garnets.
“I always had an affinity for Tahitian pearls,” too, McLean said. He even developed lockets that could hold the ashes of deceased loved ones.
As a young man, McLean had also mastered the guitar. He eventually formed the 1990s-era San Luis Obispo County band, the Noodles. After touring up and down the California coast and Japan, the group eventually disbanded, but its guitarist continues to play at occasional gigs.
Other SLO County jewelry store closures
McLean Jewelry is the latest in a series of longtime jewelry shops to close during the past few years in San Luis Obispo County.
In 2016, Keith Hamilton of Hamilton Estate Jewelers closed his Garden Street store after 35 years in business.
Within a few weeks of each other in late 2018, Marshall’s Jewelers closed after 129 years in San Luis Obispo, and Kevin Main Jewelry Design & Studio closed after about two decades at its Higuera Street location. (Kevin Main Jewelry was located in Morro Bay before that.)
K-Jon’s Diamonds & Gems planned to close following the 2019 holiday season after 40 years in Atascadero, but a former employee and her husband have taken over the business.
That seems to mirror a national trend. Peter Smith wrote in National Jeweler a year ago that the country had lost “10,000 or so jewelry stores” in the past decade.
But San Luis Obispo County may be bucking that decline: Anastasia’s Fine Jewelry has opened in the space vacated by Marshall’s, and Rogers Jewelry Co. now occupies the spot where Kevin and Kathi Main had their store.
What’s next for jeweler?
In his semi-retirement, McLean should have more time for his hobbies, which include cooking, cycling, skiing, bodysurfing and camping —especially in the Eastern Sierra.
He also plans to travel and spend time with the “love of my life, Shari Long,” a Cambria financial planner for Edward Jones Investments.
The longtime jeweler also will continue to tinker in his Cayucos shop, as his father and grandfather did.
Among other things, they taught him to “envision, invent, create and build,’ McLean recalled on his website, www.mcleanjewelry.com. “What you don’t have or can’t afford, make it yourself from what you have.”
This story was originally published January 24, 2020 at 5:10 AM.
