Taking Flight

Copper Canary Fine Jewelry Boutique, Meridian, ID

OWNER: Allie
DeSeelhorst; URL: coppercanaryboutique.com; ONLINE PRESENCE: 37,100 Instagram followers; 4.8 stars on Google; FOUNDED: 2015; Opened featured location: 2023; AREA: 7,300 square feet; DESIGN: Gabriella Winters and Allie DeSeelhorst; EMPLOYEES: 6

Perry Coles and Allie Deseelhorst

OWNER ALLIE DESEELHORST is a fifth-generation jeweler, and the business model of Copper Canary melds the influences of all five generations. Her great-great grandfather, Issac Cohen, opened a small jewelry store in Chicago in 1885. His son Archie then began a wholesale jewelry business off Wabash Avenue in 1925, and his son Charles was a traveling salesperson in the 1940s and ‘50s. Perry Coles, Charles’ son and Allie’s father, was in the first class at GIA when it opened its campus in Santa Monica, CA. He became a wholesaler of diamonds, colored gemstones and antique jewelry before opening a retail business in La Jolla in 1984 and moving to Carlsbad in 2001.

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DeSeelhorst studied fashion and business in college, moved to Utah and went to work for Nordstrom as a personal stylist in the menswear department. Coles wanted her to join him in the business, but she told him no for about five years before deciding in 2014 that it was a good fit for her.

“I had always wanted to open my own retail store,” she says. “I loved working with the public and I love the creativity behind design, textures, textiles, all of that. I was able to kind of convert that passion into my jewelry.”

But her acquiescence came with some strings. DeSeelhorst wanted to change the direction of the store and bring in luxury leather goods and other accessories. She even wanted to change the name.

Copper is a primary color at Copper Canary, from signage to marketing to collateral.

“We had a hard negotiation,” Coles jokes. “It was a 15-minute conversation.”

So, the store became Copper Canary, a name created by DeSeelhorst and her best friend out of a word association game. “We started with me saying a gemstone and her saying the first word that came to mind. We couldn’t come up with anything good, so we moved to metals. I said ‘copper’ and she said ‘canary,’ and we knew we had something memorable and different.”

However, Carlsbad began to experience a rise in crime. Moreover, the square footage of the store was limited. They decided to make a move.

“We decided as a family to start exploring other options in 2020,” says DeSeelhorst. “We wanted mild temperature, good weather. We wanted to stay near the West Coast if we could. And Boise was somewhere that we started researching and realized there’s a need for unique product.”

That unique product is primarily antique jewelry, a category in which Coles has specialized for decades. In fact, the store’s inventory spans more than 50 years of collecting antique jewelry. “Copper Canary is the only major antique jewelry store in the state of Idaho,” claims Coles.

Copper Canary features seven eras that date back to the 1700s: Georgian, Victorian, Art Nouveau, Edwardian, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco and Retro. And each era has its own showcase in the showroom.

The store’s centerpiece is a bridal island. Brick walls and columns provide continuity to the flow of the shopping experience.

“We just have such a passion for the history and the craftmanship and the artistry behind antique pieces,” says DeSeelhorst. “My dad has been collecting as long as I can remember. So he kind of hoarded some really neat jewelry over the decades.”

Coles says that when he purchases an antique piece, he wants it to be 70% of perfect or better so that he can restore it. “Typically, if I look at 300 rings, I’ll pick one or two of them,” he says. “By the time we present a piece in our showcases, it’s 90% or better.”

DeSeelhorst and Coles both also enjoy creating new jewelry out of antique pieces. “People don’t wear pins holding up their undergarments anymore like they did in 1900,” says DeSeelhorst. “So we started doing conversion pieces. People will bring in a pin from their great-grandmother and we can convert it to a necklace. We’re able to help people realize that if they’re sentimental about a piece, things can be changed and made more modern and relevant and wearable.”

That same creativity is also evident in the buildout of the current location.

The building, which formerly housed a Chinese buffet restaurant, was torn down to the studs. It sits a half-mile from the busiest intersection in Idaho.

DeSeelhorst recruited her London-based friend, Gabriella Winters, who designs sets for television shows, to partner on the store design, which took nearly three years from start to finish.

Upon entry, visitors encounter a centerpiece bridal bar, which is flanked by the antique collections. A custom locket bar sits to the left before the front windows.

A coffee lounge in the back is open to all visitors, along with comfortable couch seating and candy-filled crystal bowls throughout the store. An accessories boutique featuring luxury leather and cork products from overseas occupies the area in front of the coffee bar.

“Gabi and I took great care to make sure that all elements within the building are elegant, eye-catching, and welcoming,” says DeSeelhorst. “There are a lot of decades that influenced the layout and design, and I think you can really feel that as you walk around the showroom.”

In the design, the fine lines and sophistication of London were merged with the unique textures of stonework seen in small German towns — and even a little French architecture as well.

“The challenge was that it needed to fit into the modern environment of Boise,” says Winters. “We wanted to bring in the European aesthetic, but without disrupting the energies of the local environment.”

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Twelve-foot arched windows, high ceilings and an array of decorative light fixtures make the showroom feel open and airy. “We had 20 or 30 different styles of lamps that we selected,” says Winters. “I think it took us over a month just to curate the light.”

Three different types of natural stones can be found throughout the store: one in the coffee bar, one in the cash wrap, and another in the cascading showcases. Brick behind the cash wrap, surrounding the load-bearing posts and along the hallway to the restrooms helps the textural flow. And the colors of the showroom are calming, but with a subtle touch of excitement.

“We had a lot of conversations about colors, because I know firsthand how they can affect your mood,” says DeSeelhorst. “I tested the creamy white of the walls in my home, and it worked. Then we wanted to bring in secondary tones through textiles, so the fabric of the furniture and the stone of the cascading showcases have blues and tans, while the natural stone in our coffee bar has really pretty green tones.”

Naturally, copper was chosen as a primary color and is integrated in the sign behind the cash wrap as well as the outdoor signage and, eventually, a large dome that will sit atop the entry façade.

The beautiful, inviting space makes it even more fun for DeSeelhorst, Coles, his wife Amy and their small team to come to work every day — but it was already a joy to work with their clients, whether for antique jewelry, custom design, accessories or lockets.

“I had a landscaping company owner here yesterday picking up a pair of custom earrings, and she kept commenting about her nails because they were full of dirt. I said, ‘Oh please, you own a landscaping company. I expect you to come in with rips in your jeans and dirt on your face,’” says DeSeelhorst. “We don’t wear suits. We’re not stuffy. We want people to feel comfortable.”

Five Cool Things About Copper Canary Fine Jewelry Boutique

SECURITY PAWFICER. The store dog, Finley, is a one-and-a-half-year-old mini Australian shepherd who greets everyone who enters Copper Canary. “He’s still learning his manners,” says Coles. “But I give more of his business cards away than I do my own.”

CUSTOM LOCKET BAR. A dedicated showcase houses a “locket bar,” conceived by DeSeelhorst, which allows customers to choose a shape of locket, color of gold, size and gemstones to place inside. The gemstones are natural rock crystal quartz and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Many clients fill them with the birthstones of loved ones or gemstones from inherited jewelry. “The original concept came from people walking in with inherited jewelry, and this is a way to keep those sentimental gemstones in a cost-effective way,” says DeSeelhorst. “I call it my candy bar.”

FRIENDLY COMPETITORS. Every quarter, Emilee Nash, the marketing manager, visits other local jewelry stores to deliver an updated phone tree and a gift of chocolate, as well as to chat about business and how the merchants can send each other more referrals. “We realize we’re better working together and keeping the business than sending people away to mall stores or elsewhere,” explains DeSeelhorst.

HIGH-END THANK YOU NOTES. DeSeelhorst once heard one of her college professors say that a person should always send a handwritten thank-you note to anyone who gives them an interview. She took that advice and applied it to her clients at Nordstrom and eventually Copper Canary. She also had a custom stamp made with the store’s logo and uses it to make rose gold wax seals for the envelopes.

ONLINE DOMINANCE. While many jewelry retailers offer e-commerce, Copper Canary boasts an Etsy site, launched in 2011, that features more than 800 antique engagement rings and more than 2,000 pieces in all. “We probably have the largest amount of genuine antique jewelry on the platform that isn’t mixed with vintage or estate,” says DeSeelhorst. “A huge part of our business is being able to access clients all over the country.”

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