SUNDAY TELEGRAM (Massachusetts)
October 09, 2005 Sunday, ALL EDITIONS

Too big for his own good;
Successful jeweler leaving stress behind

by Dianne Williamson

He came to the United States as a teenager and slept with his parents
on an Oriental rug in a small apartment off Grafton Street. He got
started in the jewelry business by making two filigreed rings with
the melted gold from his mother’s wedding band and his father’s
teeth.

Today he’s known simply as Shavarsh, like Picasso or Cher, a local
artist who built from nothing a business so bustling that soon he’ll
be forced to retire at age 43, a victim of his own success, and he’s
literally heartsick at the prospect of closing his doors for good.

“I feel so bad I’m doing this,” he said last week, sitting in his
office at Shavarsh Elite Jewelry Design at 420 Main St., a space he’s
occupied for more than two decades. “But it’s time. I make my
business too big, way too big. My dream was to make a success in this
country. But this was more than my expectation.”

Only the prospect of death could force a man such as Shavarsh Azizian
to abandon his passion. Three years ago, he was diagnosed with heart
disease that his doctors attribute to stress. He’s had 10 stents
inserted to keep his arteries open and still must undergo heart
bypass surgery in February. These days when he works, he often feels
a searing pressure in his chest, he said.

His last day on the job is Dec. 24. To strengthen his resolve to
retire, he keeps a photograph on his desk that he cut from a
magazine, showing a dead man being wheeled into a morgue.

The picture keeps things in perspective.

“I don’t want to end up in that place,” he said. “But I’m very
emotional and enthusiastic about my work. Everything has to be
perfect. If I don’t like it, I crush it and start again. I get
tension when I’m working. I don’t want to close, but I don’t want to
end up like in that picture. All this money and jewelry means
nothing.”

He still speaks with the accent of his native Armenia, where both his
father and grandfather were jewelry makers. The young Shavarsh was
somewhat of a prodigy in his country; an accomplished portrait of his
father that he drew at age 13 hangs in his office. He trained with
one of the top jewelry makers in the former Soviet Union and, at 16,
became the youngest jeweler in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

That same year, in 1979, his parents emigrated with their only son to
the United States. They lived briefly in California before moving to
Worcester and staying in an apartment owned by his mother’s uncle.
They came only with jeweler’s tools and the Oriental rug they used
for a bed. The young Shavarsh made pies for Table Talk before getting
started in his craft by selling the two rings he made with help from
his parents. Soon he was selling to other stores, eventually moving
to a workshop at 405 Main St.

In 1984, he opened Guaranty Jewelers and in 2001, changed the name to
Shavarsh, because by then he was the draw. Today he has a
multimillion-dollar inventory of rings, bracelets, necklaces and
earrings, 80 percent of which he makes by hand with the help of his
assistant, Hosep Atechian. Much of their work is custom-designed for
clients.

“I’m good,” Shavarsh said simply, with neither modesty nor bravado.
“There’s so much passion in my job, but business got too good. If I
throw my customers out the door, they’ll come in through the window.
Once they find me, they never leave.”

Indeed. Shavarsh said he served 5,000 customers last year, many of
whom become friends who send their friends to see him. One such
client is local lawyer John Murphy, who bought his fiancee’s
engagement ring from Shavarsh two years ago.

“I love the guy,” Mr. Murphy said unabashedly. “When I bought my
ring, he was so warm and he was so happy for my happiness. And he’s
one of the most generous men I’ve ever met. He carries a lot of
people on his back. He has a box where he keeps slips of paper from
people who owe him money. It’s overflowing. There’s a great loyalty
among his customers because he treats everyone with respect.”

Frank Carrier, owner of F. Carrier Corp. and the Zipango sushi
restaurant on Shrewsbury Street, has been a friend and client for 14
years.

“I absolutely know he’s one of the best jewelry designers in New
England, if not the Northeast,” Mr. Carrier said. “His work is very
detailed, meticulous and precise. He’s a great jeweler and a great
friend.”

For years, he never took a vacation and typically worked 12- and
14-hour days. He’s used some of his success to help other families
emigrate from Armenia.

Now he and his wife, Lusia, spend a week in Aruba every year. He
recently stopped taking orders from customers and will have a closing
sale beginning Oct. 24.

“I have dedicated my life to carving jewels for customers I truly
cared for,” Shavarsh wrote in a mailing to customers. “Now with this
closing, I must carve time for my own special jewels: my wife and my
children.”

He looks forward to driving his three children to school and helping
them with homework. He’d like to teach them to draw and perhaps teach
one of them the craft of his father and grandfather. He may “do
golf,” he said, and he wants to travel. But he’ll make no more
jewelry, he claimed, because he can’t do anything halfway.

“I’m very heartbroken because this is all I’ve ever known,” he said.
“This business was like my fourth child. But I’m a lucky man. I
started with zero and look what I did.”

Then he brightened like the diamonds and rubies that shine from the
storefront he loves.

“I was lucky to have my customers,” Shavarsh said with a wide smile.
“But they were lucky to have me, too.”