A local fixture: Harris Jewelers rides through booms and busts A local fixture: Harris Jewelers rides through booms and busts (March 23, 2001)

Through the recent boom that saw new businesses multiply overnight across Mountain View, a number of small firms from earlier waves of the city's growth remain and provide a thread of continuity with the past.

One of these is Harris Jewelers, which has been part of the Mountain View landscape for almost 70 years. Opened in the early 1930s at 260 Castro Street, the present site of Mountain View Music Center, it is still a small, unpretentious store with a display area in front and a work area in the rear.

The shop exudes a personal feel unusual in Silicon Valley. Customers and staff are on a first-name basis as people bring their watches and rings for repair or browse the store's selection of gold and silver jewelry, clocks, and baby cups, combs, and brushes. A centerpiece of the display area is a collection of handmade Zuni, Navaho, Papago, and Pima silver pieces with inlaid designs.

The boom has been a mixed blessing for Harris. Five years ago the shop moved to its present location at 742 Villa Street from quarters at 239 Castro Street. That site, which it had occupied from 1980 until 1996, now houses Molly Magees Irish Pub.

Gary Plottel, the owner of Harris Jewelers, cites rising rents and building maintenance costs as the impetus for the move, reasons that strike a chord with other longtime Mountain View businesses that have faced similar pressures in recent years.

"There is an ongoing concern that larger retailers moving to downtown will drive up rents, and this has increased in the last two or three years," said Ellis Berns, the city's economic development manager.

Berns said that the city is developing a work plan to attract new retailers to contribute to a pedestrian-friendly downtown of diverse businesses. The city currently has 260,000 square feet of commercial and 40,000 square feet of retail space under construction.

Plottel remembers the area when it was primarily farms. When his father, Les Plottel, owned the business, many customers were seasonal workers; the elder Plottel would give them credit until harvest time, when the workers were paid.

In its early days the business was known as Smith Jewelers, after one of the first owners, Maurice Smith, who lived on Ehrhorn Avenue. In 1946 Daniel and Jules Harris, a father and son team, bought the business and renamed it Harris Jewelers. Les Plottel bought it from Jules in 1952, following Daniel Harris' death in 1950.

"My father said he kept the Harris name because he spent all his money buying the business and could not afford to buy a new sign," recalls Gary Plottel, adding that customers did call Les "Mr. Harris" on occasion.

Gary, who joined the business in the 1970s and bought it from his father in 1986, estimates that 80 to 90 percent of his business is repeat customers.

Old-fashioned-style service is a cornerstone of the firm's approach. Its three-person staff does a lot of maintenance, repair, stone-setting and jewelry design, and also repairs and cleans mechanical wrist and pocket watches, many of them family heirlooms.

Plottel enjoys updating older pieces and making new designs based on older rings and pins. "You get the best finished, best made, most durable work with handmade pieces," he maintains.

He is assisted in his work by Mary Hyde, who specializes in designing and restringing pearls and beads and has worked at Harris for almost 15 years. He also employs a goldsmith, Richard Ferraro, who specializes in diamond setting, repairs, manufacturing, and design.

Plottel, who has been active in community affairs as a member of the Mountain View Rotary board of directors, enjoys being thriving part of Mountain View's past and present.

"I love the business," he says. "It is one of those places where you get to meet people and do things for them in a positive way."