The Boston Globe
March 24, 2006 Friday
THIRD EDITION
ARA BARMAKIAN; LEADING JEWELER HELPED MANY IMMIGRANTS; AT 77
BY GLORIA NEGRI, GLOBE STAFF
Ara Barmakian, who took his father’s small business and turned it
into one of the largest family-owned jewelry companies in the
country, died Sunday at his Belmont home after a brief illness. He
was 77.
Mr. Barmakian, who trained as an engineer at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology but entered the jewelry business in his 20s
when his father died, was considered one of the biggest diamond
dealers on the East Coast and a giant in the jewelry industry.
“This man built an empire in Massachusetts, and he helped everyone
who needed help along the way,” said Souren Maserejian, a Boston
jeweler, who was one of many new Americans Mr. Barmakian sponsored
and mentored in the jewelry business.
The son of Armenian immigrants himself, Mr. Barmakian not only
sponsored his arrival in this country from Armenia in 1972,
Maserejian said, but gave him a job in his office at Barmakian
Jewelers for two years.
“He was like an older brother to me,” he said. “My dream was to have
my own place, and I got it in 1975.”
Though Mr. Barmakian was an MIT graduate, Maserejian said, “he could
sit down and talk to the plainest person with plain language and be
their friend. For any person, he gave the opportunity to encourage
him.”
Mr. Barmakian helped many young immigrants realize their dreams, said
his daughter Gail, of Oak Bluffs.
“Dad had the biggest heart in the world,” she said. “He bonded with
people quickly. He was also a workaholic.”
Mr. Barmakian was renowned for his knowledge of the jewelry business.
“He was a maven,” said Deepak Sheth, a New York jewelry and diamond
wholesaler. “He was one of my first customers when I came here from
India, a noble and generous man who treated others with tremendous
dignity. He took care of people and gave them respect. He was honored
and recognized in the jewelry industry for his knowledge and plans
for its growth.”
Last year, in Basel, Switzerland, the Armenian Jewelers Association
made Mr. Barmakian its international president. Three years earlier,
also in Basel, the AJA elected him chairman of its East Coast area
and gave him its lifetime achievement award.
“Ara was a born leader,” said Hagop Baghdadlian, owner of Cora
Diamonds in New York City. “He was shrewd, smart, and an inspiration
to all of us.”
Ara Levon Barmakian was born in Cambridge to Levon and Hripsime
Barmakian, who had fled the Armenian genocide from their home in
Malatia in Turkey.
Mr. Barmakian spoke no English until he was 5 and started attending
the Watertown public schools, his family said. He quickly
demonstrated an aptitude for all things mechanical, “as well as hard
work.”
His mother died while he was in college studying engineering, and his
father soon after.
Levon Barmakian left behind his interest in a small shop he had
opened with his brothers in the Jewelers Building downtown “with a
shoebox of inventory,” the family said.
“Dad was always the dutiful Armenian son,” Gail Barmakian said, “and
knew what he had to do. He became the patriarch of the family to his
younger twin brothers and director of the company.”
With his brothers as partners, the three built the business. Today it
consists of stores in Boston, Framingham, and Nashua.
Mr. Barmakian had learned “by necessity and by his growing interest”
all aspects of the business, from gemology to metallurgy, design and
manufacture, marketing and sales. He traveled the world on business
trips.
In 1952, Mr. Barmakian married Natalie (Gazoorian) of Worcester.
Marcia Gazoorian of Worcester said her brother-in-law was “definitely
a self-made man.”
“He was a no-nonsense person,” she said. “If something had to be
done, he learned how to do it and did it.”
“He was compassionate and inquisitive. . . . He learned a lot by
talking with people. If you wanted to talk something through, he
would ask the right questions,” she said.
Mr. Barmakian’s favorite place away from work, his wife said, was at
Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, where the family had a home.
“That’s where he would relax. He loved the water and the ocean,” she
said.
Besides his wife and his daughter, Mr. Barmakian leaves two other
daughters, Karen Herosian of Belmont and Janice McCullough of
Sudbury; his son, Ara Jr. of Belmont; two brothers, Diran and Vahan,
both of Winchester; and 11 grandchildren.
A service will be held at 11 a.m. today at St. James Armenian
Apostolic Church in Watertown. Burial will be in Mount Auburn
Cemetery, Cambridge.