Ranch Hands
MaHarry gathers with her husband and three children (Koda, Liv, and Zel) for an alfresco meal around handcrafted furniture, made by Henderson and collected from fallen trees at the ranch.
Ojai jeweler JES MAHARRY finds inspiration for her ethically made baubles in the flora and fauna of her valley compound
Written by Elizabeth Varnell | Photographs by Sam Frost
Jewelry designer Jes MaHarry sculpts her handcrafted collections on Sun Horse Ranch, a sprawling Ojai Valley property she initially sought out to house horses and foster dogs. The New York native, whose eponymous line has been worn by the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Lena Dunham, and Hillary Clinton, has lived with her husband, Patrick Henderson, at the foot of the Los Padres mountains for the past two decades. Now donkeys, goats, sheep, rabbits, tortoises, cats, dogs, and the occasional cow—almost all rescues—also make their homes here and have the run of the place. “Our house has been a work in progress,” says MaHarry, whose fine jewelry designs have topped the Sundance Catalog’s jewelry offerings for nearly as long as she’s been at work on the property.
Sun Horse Ranch includes a barn, the family house, and MaHarry’s design studio, where she and her team solder and shape recycled gold and silver and ethically sourced gems and diamonds into meaningful baubles, which are showcased in her downtown Ojai boutique. Doors and windows are almost always open, allowing the animals to roam free throughout.
“We’ve had diamond setters stop working to help with the sheep,” says MaHarry, adding that everyone on the ranch has to be versatile enough to accommodate the four-legged creatures. “I’ve always rescued animals,” she says. “They always seem to find me; I don’t search them out.” Indeed, a pair of rescued feral dogs named Bodhi and Chitta (after the Sanskrit word for awakened minds) led to MaHarry’s and her husband’s acquisition of the Ojai property. After completing her degree at Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio (where she met Henderson) and working a series of odd jobs as she honed her artistic practice, her sister got her a ticket to California and encouraged her to visit Ojai. As the youngest in a family of artists, MaHarry fell in love with the scenic town and ultimately found a rental that would accept her rescue dogs, which sealed the deal. The dogs quickly outgrew the house’s small backyard, however, and she needed more space for the animals to roam.
MaHarry’s friend Jean Marie-Webster of Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center (SPARC), who also cofounded Wild Horses in Need (WIN), discovered the almost 6-acre plot in town; it had been vacant for years and was littered with potholes, weeds, trash, and a shanty with its windows blown out. With a serendipitous bequest from a great-uncle and a loan from a friend who also supported rescues, the couple secured a down payment and set to work “like crazy fanatics,” filling jewelry orders so they could revitalize the grounds and begin building an artist’s compound. “My vision was to have a house to fix up and off to the right a design studio, while to the left there would be a barn,” recalls MaHarry.
In addition to expanding the house to hold their three children, the couple added large decks leading to fire pits to enlarge its footprint. “We live mostly outside,” says MaHarry, noting that the house and studio have deep green exteriors designed to blend with the vegetation around the property, which includes oak, eucalyptus, and pepper trees, and a little orchard of apples for the horses. Purple trim adds a playful bohemian touch to the structures and blends with the brightly colored wildflowers dotting the property each spring. MaHarry credits landscaper Emigdio Villanueva with helping design and cultivate the lush greenery and flora around the house.
The kitchen features an artisan steel wall hanging above the door, a wooden dining table, and steel stools, all crafted by MaHarry and Henderson. The crow print above the shelf is composed by Jennifer. Steel candlesticks and ceramics are made by MaHarry, while the tile backsplash is a family effort. The textile bench is from Sundance Catalog.
“I have to have things that are built really well,” says MaHarry, noting the intense wear and tear caused by the animals. Henderson, who built much of the home’s furniture by hand, planed down reclaimed wood from fencing broken by Jane, the couple’s cow, to make cupboards. “We do everything ourselves, whether it’s plaster or whatever,” she says. A barn for surfboards is the property’s newest addition.
Learning the techniques required to create everything she dreams up also fuels MaHarry’s jewelry practice. Everything is made by hand, just as it was from the beginning, when she bought files at garage sales and found metal scraps on roadsides. She still works antique beads and ethically sourced gems into necklaces, carves waxes, and hammers metals daily, remembering the moment that sparked her interest in a jewelry line. “My mom gave me a soldering class to learn how to solder silver. It was as if fireworks went off in my mind. I thought, ‘I can draw into silver, into metal, and make jewelry as a talisman.’ That was very profound,” says MaHarry. Her grandmother’s rose gold jewelry inspired the first ring she sent to Sundance (in a FedEx box hand painted with galloping wild horses), launching her multidecade relationship with the catalog, which focuses on items created by American craftspeople.
MaHarry’s pieces continue to reflect the natural world around her, as well as her life on the ranch. Inspiration comes from travels and “my children and rescue animals that have brought big energy with healing, training, and helping,” she says, adding, “I thrive off of empathy.” Her ranch is filled with family art, handmade furniture, tiles, and ceramics. And the animals are always everywhere. “We’re incredibly selective of what we bring in here; we have to resonate with everything,” says MaHarry. “It’s such a healing property. It’s very free.”
MaHarry and her daughter Zel with their gypsy horse, Zephyr.
