Barry Peterson Jewelers

Barry Peterson began crafting original jewelry in Ketchum, Idaho, in 1971 from a shop in Giacobbi Square. The Sun Valley resort community around it was developed in 1936 by Union Pacific chairman W. Averell Harriman. Five years later he moved the business to the Mall at Elkhorn, and in 1984 he returned to Ketchum and widened the collection to diamonds and precious stones, plus designer lines. He designed the present 3,600 square foot store himself. It opened on Sun Valley Road in 1991, where it still stands at number 511. In 1972 Bill Janss, the former Olympic skier who owned Sun Valley from 1964 to 1977, asked Peterson to design an original piece for the Sun Valley Company. The Sun Valley Sun that resulted is the shop's signature line, and for the resort's fiftieth anniversary Peterson made an all-diamond version set with fifty stones. Snowflake and Idaho collections followed. The shop carries brands including FOPE and William Henry, and Tane Mexico 1942. It designs custom pieces with a client's own stones or its own, and runs a jewelry repair workshop covering gemstone cutting and restoration. Peterson still travels for gems and minerals, from Brazil to watchmaking in Geneva.