For Jeweler, Risk Just A Family Trait

Sleek modern architecture?

Never.

Instead, "The Lair," Gaston Marticorena's building on the corner of Bayshore Boulevard and Monroe Street in Dunedin is rooted in the times of castles and kings.

"I wanted a building with columns and cupolas," remembered this jewelry designer.

And he got it. Never mind that he was 70 when the building
he helped design was complete and ready for Morticorena Creations, his custom jewelry store.

"My CPA told me, 'Don't start this business because you're too old.' But, I took my chances."

Taking chances is old hat for Marticorena. He came to the United States from Peru when he was only 19 with a dream of making his own way and created his own business a few years later.

Family trait

After all, he is from a family of risk takers. His ancestors, from the Basque region of Spain, were sent to Peru in the 1700s by the Spanish king to oversee some of the Spanish colonial empire's undertakings.

In Peru, the Marticorenas had careers in the military, but Gaston chose a different path.

"I was always independent," he recalled. "I wanted to do things for myself. Back home, you have to depend on family."

He discovered what would become his career at 15, when he found he had talent for making jewelry. He apprenticed with a master jeweler in Peru and later graduated art school in Lima.

During his training, Marticorena worked with Julio C. Tello, a Peruvian archeologist who made discoveries about the Paracas culture, a pre-Incan civilization in what is now Peru. To record Tello's findings, Marticorena drew the designs from the clothing of the Paracas mummies discovered by Tello. As a jeweler, he would occasionally be inspired by some of the patterns on that ancient cloth and incorporate them into modern jewelry.

First job

In the United States, he got the first job for which he applied and immediately went to work in New York City as a jeweler. He found jewelry making here different from that in Peru.

"I was surprised by the mass production system," Marticorena said. "In Lima, I made everything myself from scratch."

By the time he was 22, he was making the models from which subsequent pieces would be made by other jewelers. Model making is done by highly skilled jewelers, he said. "In 500 people, there were only one or two model makers," he said of his early days.

He went into business for himself making models a few years later. The soft-spoken Marticorena worked with top jewelers, including Tiffany & Co., the famed jewelry company noted for its high-end designs.

Marticorena still has a little copper pattern of a camel appearing to have a smile, the first model he made for Tiffany. Another jeweler would later use the pattern to craft a one-of-a-kind platinum dromedary pin. He charged Tiffany $100. "It cost $45," he told the Tiffany representative, "but the extra $50 is because my camel has a little smile."

Always driven, Marticorena worked 15-hour days in New York. "I was burned out," he remembered. Florida, with its "nice and quiet life" was appealing. He opened his own jewelry store in St. Petersburg.

Peace in Dunedin

Craving even more peace, he eventually moved his business to Dunedin, where he built The Lair to house it.

While jewelry techniques have changed with improved machinery and techniques that allow jewelers to assemble ready made pieces, Marticorena still does his own work from start to finish.
He works nine-hour days six days a week and has no thoughts of retiring.

The passion of the young man who came to this country over a half century ago still burns in the now 78-year-old Marticorena. He brought out a tiny18-karat gold Egyptian pharaoh King Tut with exquisitely detailed helmet and clothing. He made the piece because of a client who brought in a picture of the pharaoh, he said. "I didn't want to get involved because I didn't know if I could do it. But she dared me."

He looked around at the pieces in his show room he has crafted. "I took a chance," he reflected. "So far, it is good."