By Lianne Stevens
Reprinted from Ranch & Coast magazine, April 1990
Jeanne Larson remembers
one of the first dates she had with her husband, Bill,
a world-renowned mineral and gemstone expert. It was summer
in San Diego and mid-winter in South Africa, where they’d
flown in search of a rare rhodochrosite specimen, a fiery
orange-red crystal. Their journey was prompted by an excited,
middle-of-the-night phone call from Bill’s man in
Africa.
The
couple drove from Johannesburg to a small mining area just north
of Kimberly, where the big diamond mines are located. It was late
and accommodations were scarce. They ended up in a boarding house “that
wasn’t really equipped for lots of company,” Jeanne recalls. “It
probably got below 42 degrees that night.” The only room available
contained two narrow Army cots with a single blanket each – and
no heater.
There
was, however, a communal bathroom down the hall with an old-fashioned tub
that was nine feet long. “It was humongous,” Jeanne says, “a
footed, pedestal type made of cast iron.” They did what any resourceful
couple would: They filled the tub with the hottest water they could get,
popped open a bottle of fine South African white wine Bill had rounded
up, and stayed there until the water turned cold.
The
next day, their misery was rewarded with a now-famous, snail-shaped
rhodochrosite specimen that has been featured in its full, rosy glory
in numerous scholarly mineralogy journals. It’s one of Jeanne’s
favorite pieces in Bill’s spectacular collection.
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The next day, their misery was rewarded with a now-famous, snail-shaped rhodochrosite specimen that has been featured in its full, rosy glory in numerous scholarly mineralogy journals.
When the two met in 1977, the La
Jolla native had no idea how complicated her life would
soon become. She went to a party at Bill’s home on
a tip from a friend who thought Bill might be interested
in buying some La Jolla real estate from Jeanne.
“I
walked in the door, I didn’t know who he was, and I looked at
him and thought, ‘Hmmmm, now this is a person I have to know,”” she
says. The feeling was mutual, and after a bit of time spent reassuring
themselves this was the real thing (both had been married before),
they embarked on a planet-spanning, business-and-family relationship.
Now
that they have two children – William (born 1985) and Carl (born
1988) – the trips overseas have slowed down from ten to four or
five a year, and Bill often goes alone. When they can, they take the
children along. William has been to Munich and Paris, and both children
have been to Hong Kong and Thailand. “My older son has seen frogs
eaten and fish brought live to the table. It’s changed him forever,” Bill
grins. “We presume they’ll travel all over the world, that’s
part of the business. If you don’t travel, you don’t come across
new finds.”
Since
he was eight years old, Bill says, he has been a fanatic about digging
in the earth for mineral specimens. He met Josephine (‘Josie’)
Scripps, San Diego County’s premier mineral collector, soon after
he moved to Fallbrook from Minnesota with his family. She guided the
young enthusiast into his present career. By the time he was 13, he had
graduated from trading small tourmalines scrounged from local mining
dumps to setting off dynamite for more serious treasure hunting.
Scripps,
already has mentor, became his business partner. Bill barely took time
to earn a degree in geological engineering – and a Phi Beta Kappa
key – from the Colorado School of Mines and to serve in the Army.
After a stint searching for Alaskan oil, he hurried back to San Diego
to the hard-rock mining he really loves.
By the time he was 13, Bill Larson had graduated from trading small tourmalines scrounged from local mining dumps to setting off dynamite for more serious treasure hunting.
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Larson not only collects, trades
and mines fabulous mineral specimens from around the world,
but his finds and acquisitions are represented in more
museums and publications world-wide than he can count.
He’s supplied many specimens to the Smithsonian Institution
alone. The Larsons own Pala International, a mining, trading,
lapidary and jewelry-design and sales organization that
has operated mines on three continents – including
San Diego County’s most famous and productive tourmaline
mine, the “Himalaya” in Mesa Grande.
Their
retail shops in Aviara (Carlsbad) and Fallbrook, appropriately named The
Collector, draw visitors from many countries to ogle the museum-like
displays. Both stores are in beautiful, natural settings (the Fallbrook
shop is not far from the Larson’s hilltop home). Inside, specimens
of raw crystal formations blend artfully with finished jewelry, often
designed by Jeanne. The rainbow arrangements feature colored gemstones
such as sapphires, tsavorites and San Diego’s famous pink-and-green
watermelon tourmaline. This is Jeanne’s lair now, and it was
her business background and artistic bent that really put The
Collector on the map for mineral and gemstone fans.
Keeping
up with Bill is not easy, but Jeanne, Director of Retail Sales for The
Collector and corporate secretary of Pala International, is not
exactly an idler. When she studied international business and languages
at Georgetown University, she thought she’d end up in the diplomatic
corps. Instead, she met Bill and acquired a globe-trotting lifestyle
that has taken her into remote areas where water buffalo rub against
the tents at night and the ever-present danger of theft keeps the senses
alert as rough gemstones change hands late at night to avoid undesirable
attention.
Anyone who has visited the Himalaya mine to watch the ancient pink crystals emerge from wet, sparkling purple lepidolite begins to understand. “It’s something that gets inside you,” Bill says of his passion for crystal collecting.
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“For six months, I was overwhelmed,” Jeanne
says of the crash course she received in the intricacies
of Bill’s business. “I still keep learning aspects
of it to this day. It’s fascinating. What made it
even more so was to see what happens underground. It is
unbelievable that nature has created such exquisite sculpture.
And sometimes to be the first to unveil it after many millions
of years...”
Anyone
who has visited the Himalaya mine to watch the ancient pink crystals
emerge from wet, sparkling purple lepidolite begins to understand. “It’s
something that gets inside you,” Bill says of his passion for
crystal collecting. Mineral collecting is exciting and infectious
and, he says, one of the healthiest pastimes any child could learn: “When
they learn about nature, they become good people.”
With
friends all over the world who share their passion, their adventures
and their stories, the process of buying, selling, trading, faceting
or storing crystals takes on the added dimension of human interaction.
Point to any one of the extraordinary minerals and artifacts on display
in the Larson’s home, and a fascinating story is sure to unravel.
African
art collected on their travels lends a touch of exotica to their rambling,
one-story home. Delicate bird and fish paintings scattered throughout
the house were done by Gamini Ratnavira, a friend the Larsons helped
to relocate from Sri Lanka to Fallbrook; the stained-glass windows on
the wine cellar are the work of another collector friend.
In
addition to minerals, Bill also collects wines, and Jeanne says it’s
much easier now that they’ve added a real wine cellar: “For
years, we didn’t have a place to store them – we’d drink
everything we bought!” Nearby, floor-to-ceiling glass shelves display
Bill’s collection of antique lapidary tools, from diamond cutters
to microscopes.
“I was in a hotel, watching Catch 22, when I was lifted eight inches off the bed by a bomb that had gone off outside the hotel. It took every window out of the hotel and killed two people.”
Bill, who serves on the board of
the San Diego Natural History Museum, is well known to
museum curators in dozens of countries and often lectures
overseas. Recently, he’s been making contacts with
the Soviets in high places, mineralogically speaking, and
he’s excited about upcoming trips into the Eastern
bloc, where capitalist trading ventures are just becoming
possible.
But
with all the demands of travel and entertaining foreign visitors,
both Jeanne and Bill insist on making time to spend home with the
boys. They’ve organized and delegated the local business operations
to make it work.
In
their book-and-artifact-lined media room, the press of a button brings
down a large video-projection screen. It’s here, snuggled into a
central, family-sized “playpen,” that the four gather each
evening for quality video-watching time.
Whether
traveling or at home, the Larsons love to eat out. Bill especially likes
to sample the local fare on his journeys: “I’ve eaten lizard,
I’ve eaten snake, I’ve eaten bat – bat is kind of intriguing.
When you go to Sri Lanka [where he once owned a mining claim], you eat
fruit bat curry.”
They’ve
collected so many memories an stories from their lovely business – tsavorite
garnets swapped for tree gum in the mails, airline security agents snapping
off $2,000 crystal specimens, journeys into remote areas where a local
contact poses as buyer to keep prices down, screaming monkeys and terrific
Thai surf.
And
Bill’s a great storyteller. There was that time in Sri Lanka, his
last trip there, in fact...
“I
was in a hotel, watching Catch 22, when I was lifted eight inches
off the bed by a bomb that had gone off outside the hotel. It took every
window out of the hotel and killed two people.”
Jeanne,
eight months pregnant with Carl, made him promise never to go to that
war-torn – but sapphire-rich – country again.
He
promised – and he hasn’t. Six times into the People’s
Republic of China, 20 times to Bangkok, more than 20 trips to Hong Kong,
39 to Africa, 20 previous trips to Sri Lanka... but no, never again to
Sri Lanka.
Why
bother? Soon there’ll be the entire Soviet Union to explore…
Pala International
912 So. Live Oak Park Road 
Fallbrook, CA 92028 USA
Tel: 800-854-1598; 760-728-9121 Fax: 760-728-5827 E-mail: info@palagems.com
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Page updated
February 4, 2008
