Meet Patrick & Anne Kelley
The gem cutter and jewelry designer behind Blue Ridge Gems
For 30 years, Patrick and Anne Kelley have been buying, cutting and selling natural gemstones from around the world, from the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. Blue Ridge Gems is their new store and their new name: the same family, the same stones, and the same people.
Meet Patrick
Patrick is a gem cutter with a special love of emeralds. "I'm Irish, and I love the color green," he says. Over 30 years he has cut and acquired a collection of some of the finest North Carolina emeralds ever cut, and many more of them are on their way to this store. It's no accident that our logo has an emerald set between the peaks.
His friendship of decades with Hiddenite emerald authority Mike Watkins led to the Kelleys acquiring part of Mike's collection, the Watkins NC Emerald Collection. Its centerpiece is a 39.5 ct Hiddenite emerald with a GIA report. The stone is considered to be the third-largest known faceted emerald in North America.
Emeralds are Patrick's passion, but his wheel sees stones from around the world. The business began with him buying facet rough to cut, and many of the gems we sell are stones he cut himself. African garnets (tsavorite, Mandarin, demantoid and color-change) are still favorites of his.
Meet Anne
Anne is the designer of the pair. She creates our jewelry in 14k gold and sterling silver, and we still do much of the design and gold work ourselves. Anne is also the person behind every online order, so when your stone arrives carefully packed, that's Anne's work.
Why Blue Ridge Gems
For years we've been PAK Designs. PAK simply stands for Patrick & Anne Kelley, though plenty of people have guessed it meant Pakistan. So for our new store we chose a name that says where we're from: the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. PAK Designs Inc. still owns and runs the business. Same family, same stones, same people.
Blue Ridge Gems offers natural and rare gemstones, crystals and rough from around the world for collectors, jewelers and dealers. We also keep a small specialty in American rare stones: North Carolina emerald and hiddenite, North American turquoise, Montana sapphire, Maine tourmaline and Jacksons Crossroads amethyst. Every stone is natural, and every listing states its treatment: Natural, No Enhancements unless the listing says otherwise.
Show schedule
Check our Show Schedule for upcoming shows.
Wholesale
Jewelers, designers and dealers: apply for a wholesale account to see trade pricing, lot price breaks and payment terms.
Thank you for being part of our story.
Patrick & Anne Kelley