A spare jeweler’s bench didn’t quite convince Cliff Horne at age 17 to follow the jewelry path subtly set for him in his youth, but it couldn’t have hurt. Horne’s adopted grandfather, a watchmaker who raised his mother, passed the trade down to two sons and kept a bench in storage for Horne – who was busy being young, hunting and fishing in the Mississippi Delta.
But a brief ill-fitting episode at university followed by a year-and-a-half of “doing every terrible job there was” helped point Horne toward what would become a lifelong career and ultimately his own business: Horne Custom Jewelry in Gulfport, Mississippi.
“I wanted to do something without a college education where I wouldn’t have to work for a paycheck forever,” Horne says.
Horne was 20 when he enrolled in a vocational program that combined watch and jewelry repair at Jones County Junior College. Between the watch and jewelry modules, opportunity knocked – and off he went to intensive on-the-job training at Parris Jewelers in Hattiesburg, MS. Later he would work for Kevin Riley’s pawn shops in Long Beach, MS.
In 1998, married and growing a family, Horne found his way to Pav & Broome, where he would remain for fifteen years.
“The biggest education was being around five working jewelers,” he recalls. “And in 2007, they sent me to the Blaine Lewis’ school, when he was still in Virginia Beach. … His stone-setting classes were eye-opening. That was very useful.”
Horne struck out on his own in 2013, setting up shop in a building in his backyard.
“When I turned 40, I got tired of people telling me what to do,” he says.
For the next seven years, his family lived without health insurance, crossing their fingers hoping no one would have a major illness.
Finally in 2020, amid the Covid pandemic, Horne’s wife Melissa, a real estate agent, found the standalone building on Pass Road that would become their new store. Melissa operated her business out of the jewelry store. And to their great surprise, they took in $800,000 during the Covid year.
Even better – depending on how you look at it – the business paid more in taxes during its first full year, 2021, than it earned during its last full year based at home, 2019, Horne says.
“The tax bill came, and our business account went to under $1,000!”
Customers who hadn’t been in touch suddenly resurfaced when he opened the new store.
“When I had the shop at home, I didn’t do any advertising, just Facebook and word-of-mouth. … So, when I left Pav & Broome, they thought I fell off the earth. We saw a lot of familiar faces when we opened here.”
Now, daughter Laney, 24, works front of house and handles the books with Melissa, who has put her real estate license on hiatus. And son Thomas, 28, has started working in the shop with Horne.
“We keep all the pretty people in the front and the ugly people in the back,” he quips.
Because he didn’t always have his own store, Horne says his children didn’t grow up “entitled” – they joined the business as adults and didn’t take anything for granted.
With the whole family on board, Horne says he can ease up on the 75-hour weeks and begin to look at special events and other promotional ideas.
“I do an ad on TV once a month, and it pays for itself the first week of every month,” Horne says. “But you’ve got to have something to get them into the store. Once you have a customer come in, you should never lose them.”
For Horne Custom Jewelry, that something is primarily bridal, whether custom or showcase.
“Sometimes I regret putting ‘Custom’ on the sign because it’s a lot more work,” he admits. “But if I do a custom job, I’ve got them forever.”
One especially sentimental piece he made was for a woman whose brother, a Beatles fan, had passed away after visiting England and coming home with a couple of souvenir guitar picks. Horne created necklace charms out of them.
“My daughter has found that when people cry in the jewelry store, that’s a good thing.”
Horne also enjoys finding older and estate pieces and giving them new life, either by refurbishing them or selling them to an appreciative customer. One customer brought in a pile of jewelry and asked him to combine all the gems into one big ring. He did so, and Melissa’s post of it on Facebook received more than 100 reactions.
Since he opened his store, Horne has begun to be more involved in the jewelry community. He reached out to the Mississippi Jewelers Association and has become a board member. And just this year, he joined the Retail Jewelers Organization.
As for a secret to success, Horne thinks personal greetings are a must.
“When you take your car in, you like to talk to the mechanic, not the mechanic’s secretary. When you go to the doctor you want to talk to the doctor, not the nurse practitioner,” he says. “I enjoy dealing with customers and they enjoy knowing the hands that are going to be making their jewelry.”
