Valley Girl: Valerie Naifeh brings her iconic bling to Sun Valley
It’s a Monday afternoon in September and the weather in Sun Valley is brisk. Valerie Naifeh — Luxiere’s first cover girl and still striking as ever — is leading a quick tour through the second of two shops her eponymous Oklahoma City brand, Naifeh Fine Jewelry, is launching in the luxe Sun Valley Resort, longtime Hollywood playground and extremely wealthy Idaho enclave. Though Naifeh has vacationed and held trunk shows here for decades, she never planned to launch one boutique here, much less two.
“My husband George and I were up here last September vacationing, and we were on our way to get a cocktail. We walked by the jewelry store and there was a sign on the door that said ‘This business is for sale,’” Naifeh says. Intrigued? Yes, but she’d always been adamant that one retail operation was plenty for her. “I’ve had opportunities to open stores in Dallas and Tulsa. And the immediate, unequivocal answer was always no.”
So what changed? “That I love it up here so much and I’ve spent so much time up here and have considered this to be a place where I would like to semi-retire. It just made sense. Plus, after doing all the trunk shows all these years, I know the potential … for me it was just a no-brainer.”
Naifeh’s husband George Catechis, who sold his interest in his own business, The Fleuriste, during the height of the pandemic, was immediately on board and has been up to his chin in the Sun Valley projects for more than a year. “He has taken on the projects up here in Sun Valley. Like with gusto. He has been up here since May 29, and has only been in Oklahoma three days since then,” she says.
Naifeh Fine Jewelry Sun Valley opened July 1, 2023, after a whirlwind renovation of its location. It opened amid a flurry of events and parties, in keeping with the high style of the Valley and thanks in no small part to Catechis’ panache and expertise. It was a huge undertaking executed beautifully within a very compressed timeline.
But why stop there? An idea Naifeh had been experimenting with since 2022 found its footing just steps from her Sun Valley jewelry shop. Set to open in late November, Helios: Treasures from our Gilded Earth was inspired by Naifeh’s experience at the Tucson Gem Show, a massive industry event at which she’s had a booth for years.
“In 2022, I couldn’t find anybody to be in my booth because COVID. You know, the Omicron variant came back, and people were freaked out.” The show allowed her to take the year off and retain her location, “So George and I went out and I did something that I hadn’t had time to do, which was to go to some of the fossil and gem mineral shows.”
She loved what she saw, and decided to try some new items in her Oklahoma City location. “I bought a selection of the onyx merchandise, the different smaller bowls and chargers and different vessels, and we put them on display in Oklahoma City and they sold very, very well for us.” Naifeh knew that a small retail space next to her Sun Valley shop would soon become available, and so Helios (Helios was the god and personification of the sun in Greek mythology) was born. Or reborn.
“I want it to be really, really experiential for people,” she says, in large part because Sun Valley is such a family destination, and she wants it to be a fun place for children and their parents. “I have a supplier who I get whole geodes from, and then we’re going have these little hammers, and for $25 you can crack open your own geode and then we’ll have special packaging that you can take it home.” Naifeh also plans to have less expensive jewelry for men and women in Helios. “So probably price points will be from $25 to $2,500.”
Gem minerals, in the form of lamps, countertops, bars and other large-scale home wares, will make up a large part of the Helios inventory. “Right now we have this huge, beautiful quartz throne …we bought it at the Denver Gem & Mineral Show, and the price tag on that’s going to be $185,000, and when you walk in it will be our showpiece.”
Eventually Naifeh and Catechis plan to live half the year in
Oklahoma City and half in Sun Valley. It’s a plan she’s excited about. “It’s so beautiful to be up here … Last night we were sitting outside with a glass of wine and all of a sudden we saw this big object move, and it was a giant owl. And we sat there for the next 25 minutes just watching it. It was just amazing.”
About Sun Valley
Oh, it’s glam. Its pedigree is pure Hollywood mixed with American royalty and titans of business. Originally home to the Shoshone, Bannock and Lemhi tribes, the valley’s town of Ketchum became a booming mining town by the 1880s. By 1936, however, the town had dwindled to a mere 100 citizens. Sleepy. But not for long.
Count Felix Schaffgotsch arrived in Ketchum on Jan. 16, 1936, and changed the sleepy little town forever. Schaffgotsch grew up in a small market town in Upper Austria where, in the 1920s, he first encountered Averell Harriman, the millionaire playboy from America. By 1930, the Count, a champion “ski rider” as skiers were called back then, had moved to New York to work under the tutelage of Harriman, who sent him west to find the perfect location for America’s first luxury destination ski resort — the Sun Valley Resort.
In its early days, celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, Clark Gable, Lucille Ball, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper and several members of the Kennedy family skied at Sun Valley, which helped the resort secure a glamorous reputation. It continues to draw notables to this day, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Ashton Kutcher, Clint Eastwood, Demi Moore, Tom Hanks and others owning vacation homes in the area.