In 1948 Ervin and his wife Francis Donsky decided to return to Dallas from the Brownwood where they operated brother Nathan Donsky's Nathan's Jewelers store and they purchased Kuhn's Wholesale Jewelers and transformed it into Sterling Wholesale Jewelers and became one of the first catalog showrooms in the nation. Houston Wholesale Jewelers First Store 1953In 1953 Honey moved to Houston where he m
et Dave & Ruth Rubin who owned DaRu Jewelers and they formed a partnership to open Houston’s first catalog showroom, Houston Wholesale Jeweler located at Main & Rusk upstairs above the Baker Shoe Shop. As was the family tradition, Honey’s brothers Nathan, Ervin and brother in law Bob Slaton invested in the new venture. Houston Wholesale Jewelers was closely modeled on the successful Sterling Wholesale Jewelers and the two jointly produced their catalog and bought many items together in order to get preferential pricing. In 1955 Houston Wholesale Jewelers was so successful that Honey was able to return his investors principal and a profit. The business was so successful that in 1956 it had to move to larger quarters Travis & Rusk in the lobby of the Houston Club Building. In 1957 Dave Rubin passed, and Honey purchased Rubin’s share, and Ruth remained with the company as a buyer until the mid 1980’s. Sterling Jewelry & Distributing Company Northwest Highway Dallas 1961In 1961 Ervin Donsky could sense the future of retail and decided it was time to expand outside of downtown Dallas, and build a large store in the suburbs of north Dallas at Northwest Highway & Central Express Way where he built a 50,000+ store. Both Honey & Nathan Donsky invested in this bold new venture, becoming officers of the new Sterling Jewelry & Distributing Company as well as running their own companies. In 1961 due primarily to the lobbying of Gordon’s Jewelers & Zales Jewelry Company, the Texas Legislature changed the business code, which prevented any business with the word “wholesale” in their name to sell to the public at all. Houston Wholesale Jewelers ceased all consumer operations and became a buying agent & service provider for the new Houston Jewelry & Distributing Company. [Houston Wholesale Jewelers currently provides repair and manufacturing services to Houston Jewelry Inc.] Sterling Wholesale Jewelers pursued a similar course of action. By the mid 1960s the business had grown so much that Houston Jewelry began to look for a new larger location. At that time Star Furniture was preparing to move to the suburbs, and wanted to sell its buildings at Milam & Rusk, across the block from the Houston Club Building location. In 1966 Honey purchased the buildings and good friend architect Arnold Hendler remodeled them into a beautiful clean modern retail showroom. Houston Jewelry & Distributing Company Westheimer & Gessner 1973In 1971 the Galleria opened in Houston and it became clear that the future of retailing did not lay in downtown Houston, and the Donsky brothers decided to look for property to build a second and larger store on Westheimer as had was done in Dallas in 1961 by Sterling Jewelry. In 1973 they found and purchased almost 5 acres of raw land on Westheimer & Gessner. In the early 1970’s the stock market was booming and the three brothers decided to merge the Dallas & Houston operations and take the combined company public. The 1973 oil embargo crushed the stock market, and the newly merged company remained a privately held growing family business. In 1979 the merged company opened another large store in Richardson, TX. In 1987 the original downtown Dallas store was closed and a new store was opened in Arlington, TX. In 1992 Nathan Donsky passed. At that time there were 35 family owners of the corporation, some 15 or who worked for it, comprising 3 generations, and 3 branches of the family. There were five stores, and over 800 employees. What’s more the catalog showroom industry was dying quickly. Every month stores across the country were closing, as the format was obsolete. The original category killer store format of 40 – 50,000 sqf. Of selling space was now too small to compete with monster stores by Wal-Mart and Kmart of 120,000 sqf. In areas such as electronics, Sam’s Club was selling product below the price Sterling paid for the same item. The family pleasantly discovered that the real estate that the brothers had purchased to build these large stores on had quietly escalated substantially over of the years and could produce more revenue if they were redeveloped and used for other purposes. Many members of the family wished to pursue other ventures. Honey’s son-in-law Andrew L. Solomon, daughter Dana Solomon and grandson Rex Solomon wanted to transform Houston Jewelry into a high-end jewelry & fine gift store. Similarly Ervin & his son Howard Donsky wished to do the same thing in Dallas with Sterling. In the spring of 1993 Sterling Diamonds & Fine Gifts opened in Dallas, and in the summer of 1993 Houston Jewelry opened in Houston. In 1996 Ervin wished to retire, and Howard wished to enter designing and manufacturing fine jewelry, so they sold Sterling Diamonds to Barry Zale who wanted to reenter the jewelry business, and shortly there after the name was changed to Barry Zale Fine Jewelry. Howard Donsky founded the now award winning Jeffrey Howard line of designer jewelry, and has branched into fine jewelry for pets with www.Silver-Bones.com. Houston Jewelry 9521 Westheimer Houston,Tx 77063 Current Location. In 1998, Houston Jewelry launched its e-commerce Wedding Band division, www.1WeddingBand.com which now compromises a substantial element of its business.
