Husband and wife have been creating fine jewelry in SLO County for more than 40 years

On Valentine’s Day and other special events, fine jewelry can be a treasured gift of devotion.

Just imagine the emotional impact of spending more than 40 years creating those beautiful pieces alongside the one you adore, your spouse.

That’s the love-and-work story behind the Alexander-Denny Jewelry store in Cambria, where the founders, owners and operators since 1984 have been husband-and-wife Shawn Denny and Claudia Alexander, goldsmith and designer respectively.

But there’s more.

If you have had jewelry repaired or custom made in San Luis Obispo County in the last five decades or so, odds are Shawn could have been the man behind the torch and the Foredom flex-shaft drill (a professional version of a Dremel tool).

Some of his more than 175,000 hours at one goldsmith’s bench or another have been spent doing “trade work” for Alexander-Denny, including for as many as 30 jewelry stores from Santa Barbara to Paso Robles.

The rest of that time was spent creating more than 20,000 pieces of custom jewelry for engagements, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, memorials, re-creations or “just because I love you.”

Trade work encompasses it all, from fabricating or casting a new piece of jewelry to repairing or redoing a treasured older one.

Simply put, fabricating is done by shaping, soldering and polishing a piece of jewelry out of metal, then often setting stones in it.

In casting, the original design is carved out of wax or other material, then encased in a plaster-like material and heated in a kiln to burn out the wax. That void in the plaster is then filled with gold, silver, platinum or other metal, creating the piece.

The most complex design the Dennys have ever done, he said, was an emerald-and-diamond necklace. They created it recently to match a $10,000 bracelet they’d made years earlier for the same client to give his wife.

Denny declined to quote the price of the necklace, saying the wife knows the cost of the bracelet, but doesn’t know how much her husband paid for the necklace.

How Cambria couple got into the jewelry business

Both of the Dennys have loved rocks, stones and jewelry since their childhood.

“As a kid, I’d take a hammer to the stones in our driveway in Pasadena,” Claudia said. “I studied jewelry in high school and college, and just loved doing the waxes.”

Shawn “fell in love with gemstones after watching the (1959) movie ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ and seeing them take a hammer to the crystals in that cave,” he said.

He, too, continued his love affair with stones, taking a jewelry class from Roger Robinson at San Luis Obispo High School. “That’s where I really fell in love with casting,” Shawn said.

He studied lapidary work (the cutting of stones) in Jim Draper’s adult ed class at Cuesta College at the age of 16, and composed a high school vocational senior paper about his passion.

“I wrote that I was going to be a jeweler,” he recalled. And, so he was.

“I went to work for Draper at The Collector in Morro Bay” and did some jewelry creating on the side, Shawn said. “I made a beautiful necklace on my own, all lapidary work and sold it for quite a bit of money.”

They fell in love at work

The couple met in 1978, a year after he bought into the ownership of his first store in San Luis Obispo.

A year later, Claudia went to work there.

It took a while for the relationship to grow between the designer and the jeweler.

“We fell in love at work in 1984,” Claudia said. “I’d tried to set him up with my girlfriend, and when they went out on a date, I got jealous! I sabotaged the date, and then told Shawn, ‘I think I’m in love with you.’”

Her dumbfounded future fiance realized the feelings were mutual, despite the six-year spread between their ages (she’s older). They married in 1986 and opened their trade store in a big warehouse they rented from the owners of the Gold Concept.

From there, they opened Alexander-Denny Jewelry Studio in Cambria, first as an adjunct to the Aquarius Gallery, then as a small, separate, second-story studio that’s been their permanent spot at 4090 Burton Drive, Suite 12.

“We opened the store with 15 pieces of jewelry, $2,000 in our pockets and $20 in our till,” Claudia said.

Making custom jewelry requires technical skill and good people skills

“I have to figure out the personality of the person I’m designing for. I’ll draw up three designs, and I always know which one they’re going to pick,” Claudia said. “If I can fill that desire they have, that’s my favorite part of designing, when I can hit it on the head and draw it. It’s my happiness, getting it exactly the way they wanted.”

In all those years, “we’ve only had one thing returned, and that was because he designed it himself,” a chuckling Claudia said.

“He brought it back,” Shawn said of the customer, “and had Claudia design it.”

“I love doing a wax that comes out really well, and cutting stones,” he said. His favorite stone is gem silica chrysocolla, a gorgeous blue-green copper ore that evokes both turquoise and azurite.

“I also love working with the metal, setting stones in the design,” Shawn explained, “and when it comes out nice, it’s beautiful. Like a shiny little pebble.”

Once a piece is finished and ready to deliver, “nobody can touch it, not even Claudia,” Shawn said. The customer is the first person who gets to pick the piece up without wearing the protective soft-cotton gloves that keep smudges off the perfect shine and finish.

They’ve gone through a lot to keep their North Coast shop afloat

While all small businesses have labored through the many downturns of the past decades, the Dennys also have battled her health problems, from lung and heart diseases to her recent, nearly two-year battle with breast cancer.

Her four surgeries, eight hospital stays and eight infections that began in July 2022 took a heavy toll on the couple’s ability to not only keep their independent business going, but to keep their personal financial heads above water.

“We’ve only been able to be open at the store for eight months in the past four years,” Claudia said. “For now, I’m open by appointment only as I try to build my stamina up again following my last surgery in May. It’s a really slow process.”

Her advice to people facing any serious diagnosis, especially cancer, is to “build yourself a support group of other people who’ve gone through it. ... That was one of the best things I did.”

She’s grateful for the times she was able to go to work.

“I like working even for a couple of hours, getting out of myself, seeing other people, socializing. It really helps me not dwell on it,” Claudia said.

The community they’ve served for so long rallied around them, holding fundraisers and contributing everything from homemade food to money. Memories of those gestures can still bring Claudia to tears.

Cambria’s affection and support for the couple was on full display when a huge cheer went up at the Sons of American Legion Post No. 432 football playoffs event on Jan. 28 after Shawn’s name was drawn as the winner of the $1,000 grand prize.

Blending marriage and work means knowing who does what, then enjoying it

Both Shawn and Claudia say their relationship thrives because they complement each other.

“She’s very social,” the 66-year-old Shawn said of his business partner and wife of 38 years. “She does the expert designing, and I build it. It’s a 50/50 ying-and-yang relationship. We both do our own jobs and come together as one part.”

“We hardly ever argue,” Claudia, now 72, said. Plus, “Shawn won’t argue,” she said with a laugh. “If he gets mad, he leaves for a while.”

If a couple is contemplating working together, “be sure you like each other and you both enjoy what you do. Then it’s not work. That leads to a harmonious relationship” at work and at home, Claudia said.

“If we work on a project together, it always comes out better,” she said. “We balance each other. When it’s right, it’s right, and it’s great when it’s right, like our relationship is.”

Learn more

For details about the Alexander-Denny Jewelry Studio, leave a voicemail at (805) 927-0467 or check their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderDennyJewelry.