Larry Cohen, owner of Elite Fine Jewelers, can be described as a storyteller, a doting father and grandfather, a fine jewelry mogul, and the modern-day patriarch of a generational love for fine jewelry, dating back to 1952.
Fine jewelry, diamonds, watches, gold; it’s all the Cohen Family knows. Larry Cohen began working in his father’s jewelry store in Chicago, IL in 1960. He was just 6 years old at the time. After spending most of his childhood years shadowing his father and repairing watches, Larry opened his own fine jewelry store at 18 years old and the rest is history.
“My dad would set me on his work bench on top of a stack of Yellow Pages with a pair of tweezers and an old watch movement in my hands,” Cohen recalls. “By the time I was 10 years old, I considered myself a watchmaker! I wouldn’t say I was a master watchmaker, but I was pretty darn good.”
As a businessman who believes in the golden rule and values family above all else, Larry followed his three children to Arizona when they attended Arizona State University, ultimately joining the family business and opening Elite Fine Jewelers in 2016. It is no surprise that the store’s daily operations are ran as a generational family affair. Larry’s wife Beth, three adult children Ashley, Justin, and Abby as well as his nephew Jake can be found in-store Monday through Saturday each week designing custom jewelry, bookkeeping, holding consultations, buying, selling and trading diamonds and precious jewels- just as the Cohen family members before them had done in the 1950s.
“I don’t think my dad will ever stop working,” daughter Ashley Isaacson laughs as her siblings echo from across the store. “We are third generation jewelers who are so proud of the thriving business our grandfather built 70 years ago. My sons want to be jewelers when they grow up too! There’s nothing better than a family business.”
