Levy Jewelers has provided Savannah with generations of timeless craftsmanship.
Written by JESSICA LYNN CURTIS
Photos courtesy Levy Jewelers
IT’S NOT UNCOMMON for jewelry to be passed from one generation to the next. But the entire jewelry store? Well, that’s what Levy Jewelers (2025 Winner, Best Fine Jewelry) has done for the last 125 years. Over four generations of family ownership, the Levy family has grown their business into a local treasure.
While the store is today a well-known stop along Broughton Street, the story of Levy Jewelers starts far across the ocean. Around 1899, in the face of rampant political and religious persecution, Aaron Malitz Levy left the area now known as Brest, Belarus.
Following in the footsteps of another émigré from his village, Aaron decided to make the journey to Savannah to put down new roots. He arrived with nothing, not even his family (they would arrive later). But Aaron had an entrepreneurial spirit. He was a watchmaker by trade, and in 1900, he opened his one-man shop in the Ellis Square area.
“Do you know about B&D Burgers [on West Congress Street]?” asks Lowell Kronowitz, Aaron’s great-grandson and the current owner of Levy Jewelers. “There’s a big open space next to them where they show movies and TV on the wall — that space was my great-grandfather’s little shop.”
Kronowitz explains that, initially, the business was more like a general store. “My understanding is, we sold nearly anything at that point.”
How did this small business evolve into the impressive jewelry store that now inhabits the entire corner of East Broughton and Bull streets, plus an Oglethorpe Mall location?
Jack, the youngest son of Aaron Levy, took over the family business in 1928, along with two of his sisters. It was Jack who began expanding beyond watches into diamonds and other types of jewelry. Levy Jewelers began to slowly grow, and by 1935, the family was able to purchase the property at 101 Broughton St., where they built what would become their flagship store for many years.
Levy Jewelers was ahead of its time in more ways than one. It was one of the first stores in Savannah to have air conditioning. It was also one of the first in the area to offer credit to the Black community in what was still a segregated South.
The company also experimented. It was Savannah’s original Samsonite and American Tourister luggage dealer and sold G.E. appliances. They were even the exclusive Polaroid camera franchise in the area, for a time. But under the direction of the next Aaron Malitz Levy (son of Jack and named for his grandfather), who, along with his wife, Dayle, came on board in the early 1960s, the company began to refine its focus solely to fine jewelry and watches.
By the early 2000s, that second Aaron Levy was ready to pass on the family business, but he had no takers. Then, he had a fortuitous lunch with Lowell Kronowitz, the son of his cousin Bailee Tenenbaum. (Her mother was Rosaline Levy, sister of Jack and daughter of the first Aaron.)
Aaron shared with Kronowitz that he had almost sold Levy Jewelers to an outside party. But he was heartsick at the thought of new owners coming in and possibly firing the staff, many of whom had been with the company since the 1970s.
Kronowitz, a native Savannahian, had been working on Wall Street in New York City. But after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, he felt uneasy raising his family in New York and wanted to move them all back to Savannah. And so it was agreed: Kronowitz would buy Levy Jewelers, as long as Aaron and Dayle would stay on for five more years to teach him all the facets of the business.
Under Kronowitz, Levy Jewelers moved to its current location at 2 Broughton St., where they’ve continued to provide Savannah with refined elegance and their trademark excellent customer service while selling both new and estate jewelry.
There have been challenges — they’ve experienced the same issue as most brick-and-mortar stores in recent years. Kronowitz also notes the effects the Broughton Street renovation, downtown construction boom, and lack of parking have had on local Savannah businesses.
“It’s not easy, but we have 40 families who make their living through Levy Jewelers,” he says of his efforts to make sure the family business is around for a fifth generation. Like his predecessors, Kronowitz considers all Levy Jewelers employees family.
“It’s a testament,” Kronowitz says, referring to both the longevity of their employees’ tenure as well as their work serving multiple generations of customers.
Kronowitz notes that there are several businesses in downtown Savannah that have reached or surpassed the 100-year mark. “Savannah has always supported Savannah,” he says. But he emphasizes the need to keep supporting downtown. “If we want these wonderful businesses to survive into Savannah’s future, we have to keep going downtown, walking in, and continuing to support them.”
