Olivia Sordo to Close Jewelry Store

After 19 years in the jewelry-design business, Olivia Sordo is closing her studio in Fayetteville. The inventory is currently being sold at discounts of 25 to 60 percent. Sordo said she plans to close the store early this summer.

“I’m getting to the age where I’ve decided I need to have a little bit of a life,” she said. “My mother died when she was very young, so she didn’t get to do a lot of the things she wanted to do.”

After working in the profession for three years, Sordo opened her first store in 1986 in a 100-SF space on Green Acres Road.

“I had 12 pieces in my little showcase, and I thought that was enough,” she said.

A year later, Sordo moved Olivia Sordo Jewelry Design Studio to a 652-SF space in the McIlroy Bank building on the downtown Fayetteville square. Twelve years later, she occupied 2,500 SF in that building.

Sordo moved her business to Crossroads Village shopping center on the east side of Fayetteville in 1998. The store occupied a 2,500-SF spot there as well.

“I really had no intention of letting it grow that much,” she said. “I just wanted to design and actually make and repair the jewelry.”

Sordo said she will continue to design jewelry after she closes the store but she’s tired of the marketing and business aspects of the craft.

“I really want to get out from under the stress,” she said. “The stress is tremendous. But it has been a wonderful experience. I have enjoyed just about every aspect of it.”