By KEVIN NEVERS

For eight years Craig O’Brien and Dana Johnson slowly built the business of Ashley’s Jewelry by Design at a somewhat less than prime location: tucked into a corner of a nondescript building on an undistinguished section of South Calumet Road.

Build the business he did, however, much of it by word of mouth, until customers from Valparaiso, Michigan City, and LaPorte accounted for nearly half of his sales.

But last month Ashley’s moved to a new, more visible, space, next to Ken Baur’s Framing Concepts Gallery and into the elegantly renovated western half of the old Ben Franklin at 221 Broadway. O’Brien  and Johnson brought with them a solid customer base, expectations of an increase in walk-in traffic, and one other thing too—something which especially appeals to Baur, Ashley's new landlord: proof that a mid- to high-price point business can thrive in the Chesterton Downtown.

Baur—who opened Framing Concepts last year in the eastern half of the old Ben Franklin after being forced to close the store which he and his family owned and operated for 63 years—is now looking at O’Brien both as a collaborator and a mentor, and on O’Brien’s success in an upscale business Baur hopes to pattern his own.

Although Ashley’s features a large and varied selection of “off-the-rack” jewelry, its specialty is the custom-design and hand-crafting of unique items. “We do it the old-fashioned way,” O’Brien says. “We start from a basic sketch and then do a colored drawing.” For customers who know that they want something special but aren’t sure exactly what, O’Brien is compiling a gallery of previous drawings to fire people’s imagination.

Ashley’s offers other services as well, in particular appraisals by an on-staff gemologist, handy, for instance, when a person inherits a loose stone and wants it identified and valued. “We’re an all-in-one service,” O’Brien says.

The new location has slightly more than twice as much square footage as the old one, with a central island in the center, and feels as well as looks far roomier than the previous store. The increased space has allowed O’Brien to offer not only a full line of Citizen watches—a line much requested by his customers, he adds—but also related gift items, including an assortment of distinctive jewelry boxes and wine carriers made of fine wood.

Ahsley's showroom is notable for another reason too: its walls are decorated with art framed by Baur, one of several ways in which O’Brien and Baur have undertaken to cross-market and cross-promote each other’s business. The two are also sharing advertising and plan to cut a television commercial together, to air on local cable.

In fact, collaboration makes all kinds of sense to O’Brien and Baur. Both businesses offer sometimes pricey products and services, both market to roughly the same demographic, and both stand to gain from a spillover of customers. “Since we’ve been here,” O’Brien says, “we’ve definitely seen an increase in traffic.”

Indeed, in the very uniqueness of the two businesses Ashley’s and Framing Concepts share something else as well: a need to “educate” the public about what precisely they do. As O’Brien notes, many of his potential customers are new-comers to Duneland and may not even be aware of a store in Chesterton where custom-made jewelry is available.

Baur’s challenge is slightly different. He needs to persuade people in need of framing why his specialty—custom preservation framing—is worth the extra cost. If something is worth framing, he explains—whatever it might be: from art to mementos to heirlooms—it’s worth doing in such a way as both to display the piece to best advantage and to protect it from the ravages of light and acid corrosion. Baur accordingly uses the same processes developed by and for museums. “It takes a lot of knowledge and ability to do that,” he says. “We use the correct methods and materials.”

Framing Concepts features as well a large selection of original art—much of it by such local artists as David Sander, David Tutwiler, and Trent Albert—and an always changing exhibition of Baur’s own art: not simply framed paintings and photographs but framed sports jerseys, baby shoes, golf clubs, baseballs, big-game tickets, specimens of the prized sentimental possessions which his customers cherish and want to display. “We sell by example,” he says.

O’Brien and Baur are hoping that the proximity of the stores packs a one-two punch for their businesses. “A lot of people could look at themselves as competitors,” O’Brien says, “but we’re choosing not to see at it that way. We’re actually building each other. We’re both offering something unique in this area.”

Posted 8/9/2002