Nov. 16, 2008 — Like father, like daughter: Coral Bay jeweler Sandi Stein, who owns Steinworks in Cocoloba shopping center, learned the intricacies of crafting fine jewelry from her father, Herman Riley Stein.
"I melt my own gold," she says. "I make my wire and sheets."
Stein, 61, crafts pieces in silver and gold from her bench at Steinworks. Her glass cabinets are filled with silver bracelets adorned with old blue and white pottery shards, sea glass, turquoise, black coral, semiprecious stones and much, much more. Elegant necklaces and earrings sit alongside.
Shop also for sailboats crafted in silver with pecan-shell hulls.
Stein also does repairs.
"When stones fall out of a ring, or a bracelet is broken …," she says.
She also makes custom jewelry, either to her design or based on what the customer has in mind, including replicas of customers' boats.
When a customer picks just the stone and the metal, leaving the design up to her, she always involves them in the creative process.
"I always have the person come in while I'm doing it," she says.
As for what inspires her — it can be anything. While she sometimes takes her cue from the jewelry she sees on other people, she always puts her own spin on it. And sometimes inspiration comes out of the blue.
"Just a little twinkling of an eye," she says.
The road to St. John — where she arrived in 2004 after falling in love with the island on a visit to see a friend, Jack Bream — started in Hollywood Hills, Calif.
After graduating from Hollywood High School, she and her family moved to the Yucatan. After returning to the Los Angeles area, she went off to college, attending Los Angeles City College and Valley Junior College. A stint teaching nursery school followed.
She then headed off for a year of hitchhiking around Europe before spending several months in Afghanistan and then India and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, her father had moved his jewelry business to Tavernier in the Florida Keys. After attending classes at Miami Dade Junior College, she got married, had a baby and moved to Las Vegas, where she worked as a blackjack dealer.
After she got divorced, she worked on cruise ships. This landed her a walk-on role in the pilot for "The Love Boat," a popular 1970s and '80s television show, and her first trip to the Caribbean.
"I came to St. John for the first time in 1978," she says. "It was such a little town."
The jewelry business soon beckoned again, and she spent time traveling around Brazil as a gemstone buyer. After a stint in Gainesville, Fla., mastering her craft, she moved back to the Florida Keys in 1984 to go in business with her father.
"We were Stein and Stein," she says.
After her visiting St. John in 2004, she returned home and packed up her belongings to move lock, stock and barrel to St. John.
She first worked from a jeweler's bench at a Coral Bay store, Syzergy. When Cocoloba shopping center was finished, she opened her own store.
When she's not at the store, you'll find her playing cribbage with friends, rehearsing with Epiphany Theater, hitting the beach or off island visiting her son. With the unusual first name of D, her son and his wife, Martie, live in Morgantown, W.Va., with their two children, Brianna, 7, and Dylan, 3 1/2.
Steinworks is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday or by appointment. The store, which has its entrance across from the former Voyages Restaurant, will also be open Saturdays during the Christmas season.
For more information, call 776-8355 or visit sandisteinworks.com.
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