Scott James Jewelry

Each Single Strike Ring from Scott James Jewelry gets one hit from a river rock, and Scott Whitaker picks the rock. The blow leaves the stone's texture pressed into the sterling silver, a mark the shop calls Earth's fingerprint. Whitaker makes the rings in a private workshop in Heber City, where the Park Record found him in 2026 spending most days hunched over a desk.

His family moved to the Heber Valley from Seattle when he was 14, and his parents set one rule on arrival: no TVs. He spent his teenage years unsure of what Seinfeld was. He learned to irrigate fields and feed cows on the family farm, and in art classes at Wasatch High School he learned to cut and polish stone.

After graduation he went to work at Tommy Knockers Custom Jewelry on Park City's Main Street. In 2006 he and his wife, Melissa, bought Broderick's Fine Jewelry in Heber City and renamed it. The financial crisis hit two years later. Whitaker told the Park Record it also brought chances to buy gold and refine it for reuse, because many people were selling whatever they had to pay their bills.

He ran the Main Street store until 2018, then decided the work of running a storefront was not for him and moved the business online. "I even hate to take a phone call nowadays," he said. The phone-shy jeweler now has almost 65,000 Instagram followers, who tune in on What's Inside Wednesday to watch him cut gems in half.

A lot of his material comes from close to home. His topography line casts mountain ridges in sterling silver, and the Timpanogos bracelet puts the whole peak on a leather band. He brings tree bark home from hikes to cast into metal, and the tips on his bolo ties are made from one of his favorite trees. Stones travel farther, and he tries to buy from family-run suppliers whose owners he knows personally.

Silver has been the hard part lately. The Park Record reported that the metal went from just over $25 an ounce in April to nearly $125 in January, and silver runs through much of his line, from rings to belt buckles. He still makes wedding rings, and he has set loved ones' ashes into pieces people can wear.

"I don't know how many customers I've hugged and cried with over the years," he said. That is a lot of conversation for a man who would rather not answer the phone.