Minding Your Business ----- Dune

Dune Boutique

Calling all adventurers, beach bums, and memory makers!

506 Route 28

Harwich Port

774-209-3744

DuneJewelry.com

Open Daily, Year Round

Many years ago, a friend gave me a Christmas tree ornament, a snowflake image coated with sand from Red River Beach, a thoughtful gift that I have to this day and bring out every December when we decorate the tree. So imagine my surprise when I went to interview Kellie Quinn, one of the two founders of Dune Jewelry at their boutique in Harwich Port, to find out that those ornaments were the impetus to their business.

“I may have created the concept with those ornaments, but my partner and best friend from kindergarten, Holly Daniels Christiansen had the ambition and the foresight to see how sand from favorite places can create permanent memories, and saw what Dune could be and is today,” said Quinn. Today the retail shop has over 1,000 kinds of sand on display and access to over 5,500 samples of sand from all seven continents.

“And if you have a place that has sand you’d like to incorporate into one of our pieces of jewelry, bring it in,” said Quinn. “We can take that and make you a custom piece!”

But I don’t think you need to. They really have the gamut of beaches covered, down to three or four kinds of sand from different sections of the same beach! They even have Fenway dirt!

“That’s one I gathered,” said Quinn, laughing. “Wakefield closed the game that day, and I asked one of the security guys if he could get me some dirt from the pitcher’s mound after the game! I have personally gathered about 300 or more samples of sand.”

The Harwich Port Boutique is the only Dune retail shop, though “Dune Jewelry is sold in over 650 shops nationwide,” said Quinn with a smile. “In the beginning we created all the jewelry here on the Cape but now we have a production studio off Cape.” The two both grew up here and were raised in Orleans. “I live here in Harwich now.”

The shop is light and bright, with parking in the back. The jewelry is beautiful and the personalization of the sand makes it a thoughtful gift. And they ship for free! There are bracelets, pendants, necklaces, earrings and rings! There are home accents, too. Plus they have broadened their range to include seaglass, beach rose petals and quahog shells. And they give back. They support the Clean Ocean Movement, whose mission is make our waters plastic-free.

It’s a great shop and one Harwich Port is lucky to have! Stop in today!