A new Roosevelt Row business is the product of one couple’s combined love of rocks, tattoos and the unusual.
Buried Treasures, one of several business developments downtown this summer, opened in early July near Fifth and Roosevelt streets. Co-owner Krystan Frahm said she always wanted to own a rock shop. She began collecting rocks as a child, and never stopped.
But Buried Treasures is not only a rock and mineral shop — Frahm and her husband and co-owner Steve sell antiques, books on Wicca and spiritualism, and crafts made by local artists. Steve also runs tattoo parlor in the building.
Krystan Frahm said Steve, a tattoo artist with 25 years of experience in the industry, wanted to open his own parlor. So they decided to combine their interests of tattoos and minerals into one shop.
Steve believes tattoos and minerals are a natural pairing because he considers both to be a combination of art and science.
“Each mineral and each tattoo are works of art,” he said.
The couple researched locations and ultimately decided they wanted to be downtown after the previous owner of the building, a former client of Steve’s, offered the space to them before it hit the market.
Krystan said they immediately hit it off with the realtor and the owner, and the space was theirs.
“It was like all the stars aligned,” she said.
She said business has been going well since the store opened a month and a half ago. Most of the store’s customers have been students returning to the Phoenix area for school and buying decorations for their dorms, she said.
“We’re getting busy,” she said. “We’re excited to see what comes next.”
Krystan said she thought their business would be a good fit for Roosevelt Row, and she hopes the unique nature of the store will draw customers. She said an important aspect of a mineral shop is that customers can pick up and look at what they’re going to buy.
“You’re not shopping on eBay or Etsy. It’s something you can touch and feel and see,” she said. “I think everyone can identify with wanting to pick up and look at shiny rocks.”
The stones are acquired in a variety of ways, much of which is done by hand. The Frahms travel across the country for rock and mineral shows, and they get some of their stock from friends who are also mineral collectors.
Apart from rocks and minerals, the store features handmade voodoo dolls, made by local tattoo artist K-ta Buathier. The couple knows Buathier because she worked with Steve.
Buathier has made the dolls for five years and said she wanted to make unique dolls for unique people.
“Each is handmade and different from the rest,” she said.
Buathier said she would bring the dolls with her to sell when she traveled for tattoo expos, and Steve offered to sell some of the dolls for her when they opened Buried Treasures.
“We want to encourage shop local, be local,” Krystan said. The store includes more art by other local artists, as well as antiques, which Krystan said “sort of fell into the mix.”
She said it started with small things, like a wooden carved box for storage, but it gradually grew into a larger aspect of the store. Candlesticks line shelves along with jewelry boxes, perfume bottles and aged chalices.
Steve said he was first drawn to collecting antiques because of their visual nature.
“Because I create art for my job, I can appreciate the art of antique furniture,” he said.
With the eclectic mix of products and services offered at Buried Treasures, Krystan said part of her and her husband’s job is to bring different oddities to the surface. Most of the antiques they sell or own were found at the back of a store, or buried behind other things, similar to how the minerals in the shop were once buried in the earth.
“Everything we sell is a buried treasure,” she said.
Contact the reporter at sshblaylock@gmail.com
