It’s a lovely piece and it’s always nice to see our mystery stone of the month in action.

Well done, Karen, and all our Honorable Mentions, who also submitted the correct answer.

Honorary Mentions

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ONLINE EXTRA: Q&A with Meredith Lusk

How important is curb appeal to your business?

It’s everything. I think it’s especially important in a small town that is a pedestrian friendly town. People are walking by and this is a town where golf carts are street legal. Curb appeal is really the best attraction for people who are here.

You studied anthropology and Spanish in college in New Orleans. How did that experience influence your life or business?

I went to Tulane, I love it down there. It’s such a cool place and different from where I am. I have these faux flickering lanterns with LED bulbs that remind me of the gas lanterns in New Orleans. We’re a pedestrian town so people stroll around even in the evening and that flickering catches your eye.

Spanish was something I had already been studying in high school and I was working as a translator with a migrant Head Start program on the shore. We have a migrant population that used to be more transitory in this agricultural area. Now it’s year-round. I was working with children of farm workers. And anthropology, I was just fascinated by. Obviously those two things don’t have anything directly to do with jewelry. I got into this because it was a hobby. I never set out to start a jewelry business. I was making jewelry as a hobby in my early 20s. I was working as a reporter and teaching Spanish to adult learners at the community college. Jewelry was just a hobby. I was self-taught and making things on my kitchen table. People started asking to buy things. I signed up for a craft fair and it was successful from the start. I’ve always had the entrepreneurial bent. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family.

But I do think my studies and my time in New Orleans and a semester abroad in Chile, that those experiences and influences have shaped my design aesthetic when it comes to jewelry and the store design, honestly. There is a connection.

When Stanley Major called you a THIRD time to see if you needed any fish leather, why did you change your mind and say yes? And how did he get your number to begin with?

In the beginning years of my business, 2005, 2006, 2007, I was really focused on sourcing fair trade semi-precious stones, looking for suppliers that were more progressive at a time when that wasn’t something that was talked about as widely. Somehow online I got listed as an eco-friendly business. Stanley is in Toronto and when he called, I said, “WHAT? And I turned him down twice. I didn’t set out to be a fish leather jewelry designer. I had never heard of it either. It kind of came looking for me. Sometimes an idea will cross your path and a seed is planted. Sometimes when you’re kind of in a different place those seeds start to blossom. That’s what happened to me. I was desperate to save my business. I thought, how am I going to keep this going? I needed to find something unique, or I was going to have to get a day job. That’s the most interesting part of the whole thing. I didn’t go looking for fish leather. It came and knocked on my door. When life hands you lemons, you might have to make lemonade, and you may have to get pretty creative.

This IS a lemons to lemonade story. I wouldn’t have this store if something that I thought was really horrible hadn’t happened four years ago.

I was renting a space from gallery owner for three and a half years. I had invested a lot in making this space a beautiful store and I thought we had a good relationship. And on New Year’s Eve 2019 I got a certified letter from him saying he was not going to renew my lease because he was going to expand his gallery. I had a month to get out. I was so upset. This is a small town. There aren’t that many buildings, especially ones that are in a good enough space to be a storefront. This is my livelihood. This is how I support my daughter and myself. I called my mentor and he said, `Meredith, I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but this is going to be the best kick in the nuts you ever got. It will give you an opportunity to have your own space, to create a space you can sell fine jewelry.’

I happened to remember that one of my clients who owned a business was going to retire and close her consultant firm and wanted to renovate it for retail. We started the project late January 2020, and it involved a lot of demo. It was in horrible shape. Then COVID hit and everything went to hell in a handbasket. What I thought would be a four-month project turned into two years of renovation. I found a temporary location on a side street and in retrospect it worked out fine and allowed me to put all the energy into creating this store we have today.

I probably would’ve stayed right where I was and even expanded my business, but having to move was the best thing that ever happened. The pain of a building renovation was not any fun, but in the end having extra time was better because it allowed us to be better, to tap into some grant funds and PPP funds.

Where did the name moonrise come from?

We have some spectacular moonrises on the eastern shore. I’ve always loved watching that, but when I started this business I really wanted to create an enterprise that would support me and other women in our rural community and beyond. It really is a team effort. The moon was symbolic of rising feminine energy and power and the increased participation of women in the business world.

What do you look for when you’re hiring?

I’m looking for someone I would enjoy working with and spending a lot of time around. Someone who has a positive and upbeat attitude about them. They would fit in best with the rest of the team with those qualities. I do find that personality traits are important to keeping team culture and morale high.

What’s your idea of a perfect day off, and how do you achieve a comfortable work/life balance, if you do?

Definitely spending time at the beach. I have a teenage daughter who is 15 who loves to surf. A day off at the beach watching my daughter surf would be the perfect day off. I do believe I have a comfortable work/life balance. It’s always a work in progress but yes I have prioritized that more in recent years and I’m happy that I have. Having a teenage daughter forces you to because you realize this is kind of fleeting, this time of life.

Now that your hobby became your career, do you have any new hobbies?

I’m taking up running. Being a full-time single mom business owner I feel like I don’t have much time for hobbies. But it’s definitely on my list. I would like to try pottery. The functional nature of it really appeals to me. Things you need to use appeals to me. But I feel like my temptation might be to turn anything I do into a business.

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Who am I?

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You have an edge in the Gem Quiz when the stone in question is found in your backyard. That was the case for our October winner, Emily Core of Perry’s Diamonds & Estate Jewelry in Charlotte, NC, who correctly identified Hiddenite, noting that she “went to the mine on a 5th grade field trip!” Well done, Emily, and all our Honorable Mentions who also answered correctly – and who disproportionately seemed to come from the Tar Heel State.

Honorary Mentions

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When entrepreneur Emily Williams bought the Winter Park, FL, jewelry store Be On Park two years ago, it was her first foray into the jewelry business, although she had extensive experience in other retail sectors, owning an apparel, home goods, and gift store called The Grove, and a wedding registry, tableware, and home accessories store called  Clementine, all in Winter Park. After she bought Be On Park, she realized she had to change nearly everything about it to make it her own, from stocking it with one of a kind pieces that spoke to her, to reimagining interior details, naturally enough, since she is also an interior designer for Z Properties, a design-build firm she owns with her husband, Zane.

Q. What do you look for in jewelry designers?

A. When I’m looking for new, I don’t look by category. It’s by design and by what is captivating, but it needs to be different, it needs to be new. It’s strange to me to climb into a market and want to do the same thing that 20 other people are doing. New, different, different use of material. Different designs, interesting shapes. For us to bring it in, it has to stand out from everything else that’s in our case. It has to have its own niche.

Q. What is Winter Park like?

A. Wiinter Park is beautiful, treed, somewhat eclectic. There’s a great sense of history and community. It’s good for us and good for our business. It’s not a small town but if you’ve been there for any period of time you can find someone that you know pretty easily. That familiarity helps me and guides me in understanding what we’re buying.

And the number of new customers that we have who had never been to our store, who have traveled to see us, that is incredibly inspiring to me. I want them to have a great memory and experience. I want them to leave and remember us and think about how fabulous it was and call on us in the future.

Q. Do you have events?

A. We have a fair amount of trunk shows, a multi-vendor holiday party that we love, and then we try and do other, smaller events. We’ve hosted a good client of ours who has a book club, we’ve hosted her book club after hours and another ladies group; sometimes, there are after hours events on Park Avenue where we are sometimes organized by the chamber or by other stores. A sip and stroll, or something like that where people can wander from business to business. I love to do things to bring people into the store in a different way.

Q. What changes did you make when you bought the store?

A. It’s changed in a lot of ways. I think that it’s the same scenario like when you buy a house; you see it, love it, buy it, it meets all your needs. Then you move in, take a look around and think you have to rip all of it out. And so the store was kind of like that for me. I thought it was great. I’d been in the store a million times and thought I loved everything about it. But then I thought now that it’s mine everything has to change!

Showroom, colors, décor, is completely different from when I bought it and same with the jewelry. We still have the classics, the fundamentals, but we’ve brought in quite a lot of new, a lot of color, variety, in terms of who our customer might be.

As for the showroom, every surface was painted, all of the cases were painted. It was dark wood cases and gray carpet and now we have a new seating area done in bright colors. All different art. Lighter, brighter, fun rugs, in addition to new carpet. Lots of color. Everything’s different, head to toe, I think.

Q. How do you shop for jewelry?

A. Not coming from the jewelry industry is a good thing. I didn’t approach it as a jewelry buyer might and I don’t have an analytical mind for all of that. I don’t want to miss those things that have been selling, but I don’t want to buy those to the exclusion of things that are new, interesting and super exciting to me. I go more with what I feel and what I love.

I would rather buy one big fantastic thing that I love and want to get behind, rather than five or six things that I feel less excited about. And I want someone else to come in and feel the same way. We have had good reaction to those kinds of things.

I want to love everything. I don’t want to love what’s in this case and not what’s in that case. There is not a thing in the store that I don’t love.

Q. Who are your customers?

A. It’s a mix. We have a lot of self purchasers. A lot of women who just wander in, some of them on a very regular basis, every Thursday or every other Thursday when they lunch with a girlfriend. And then of course we still have traditional anniversary, birthday shoppers, men who come in sometimes knowing what they want and sometimes not knowing. But it has shifted a lot to a self purchaser of a woman buyer.

Q. Describe an ideal day off.

A. It’s very lazy. I will usually go to a barre class and sit by my pool or sit by the lake. I went paddleboarding this weekend. I don’t like to leave my house if I don’t have to. I like to enjoy the quiet and home.

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