Look Book

44 | The Jewelr y Book COMING HOME I.M. JAFFE JEWELERS REIMAGINES A HISTORIC POST OFFICE IN PERRYSBURG, OHIO Eighty years aer Harold Jaffe opened his first jewelry store in Perrysburg, Ohio, his descendants brought the family name home. Ivan and Michelle Jaffe, both born in Perrysburg, are building I.M. Jaffe Jewelers inside a 1940-era post office, transforming the building into a distinctive jewelry showroom. Harold Jaffe Jewelers closed its Toledo store in January 2024 aer Ivan's brother, Jeff, retired. Ivan and Michelle wanted something different for their next chapter: a contrast to the large, freestanding suburban office building that had housed the family's most recent store. Architect and jewelry store designer Jesse Balaity spent time with the couple scouting locations along the historic main streets of towns surrounding Toledo. In the end, nothing compared to the Perrysburg post office, which spoke to them with its classical proportions and ideal location. e building housed two very different sides. Its formal lobby—clad in marble, trimmed in original woodwork, and anchored by a historic WPA mural — had been carefully preserved by tenants. e former mail-sorting room told a different story: an irregularly shaped, utilitarian space cluttered with exposed roof-access ladders and ductwork, and most recently home to a gym whose owners had glued and nailed exercise mats directly to the original wood floors. at contrast shaped the design strategy. "For the lobby we preserved the historic character with minimal design intervention," Balaity says. "But the mail room was more of a blank slate, defined mostly by its tall original double-hung windows flooding the space with light from all sides." Rather than manufacture a false sense of history in the mail room, Balaity treated it as a modern jewelry environment. "We intermixed refined new elements with some playful furniture installations and a pool table from the old store to anchor a social hub," he says. e resulting aesthetic is like a minimalist art gallery. at museum- like quality is more than a design metaphor: Michelle, who has a background in art history, sourced several of the store's showcases directly from the Toledo Museum of Art, which was phasing them out; other showcases were built on site by local artisans. e Jaffes struggled to find a technician still willing and able to service the building's massive, car-sized boiler. And when Michelle requested halo-lit signage—a detail she wanted aer noticing it in Las Vegas—the village had to write an ordinance just to process her request. "It was awesome, they are so nice here," Michelle says of the town's willingness to work with them, even as nearly every phase of the project revealed a new obstacle. In the lobby, Michelle curated pieces from 10 independent designers, discovered through the Continental Buying Group's Designers Guild. Each vitrine includes the artist's biography. Members of the IM Jaffe team will carry the title "ambassador" rather than sales associate—a role that extends beyond the sales floor. Each month follows a rhythm: planning in the first week, a charity event in the second, a trunk show in the third and a hands-on jewelry class in the fourth, covering anything from pearl restringing and wax carving to jewelry box makeovers. Two 14-foot-long tables in the store are dedicated to these classes. I.M. Jaffe Jewelers celebrates its grand opening Oct. 15, with the mayor of Perrysburg performing the ribbon cutting—80 years aer Harold Jaffe opened his first store in the same town. So, there's time and there's a space for the Jaffe family's story to continue. "I think the joy of being an independent jeweler now is being able to tell a story," Michelle says. R E T A I L R A D A R by Eileen McClelland

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