What it’s actually like
Most of the jewelry on Scottsdale’s gallery streets is Native silver and turquoise. Cornelis Hollander is the exception on Marshall Way: a European-trained studio jeweler’s shop, founded in 1984, whose work is fine jewelry set with diamonds and colored gems, and whose specialty is the engagement ring. The studio at 4151 North Marshall Way sits on the gallery blocks south of Fifth Avenue and keeps gallery hours, including the Thursday evening ArtWalk, and it presents its jewelry the way its neighbors present paintings.
The house style is recognizable once you have seen it. Cornelis Hollander, born in Amsterdam, was known for sculptural designs, especially split shanks, rings whose band divides as it rises to the stone, set with distinctive colored gems and geometric cuts. The engagement rings lean on the clean lines and geometry of Art Deco. Phoenix Magazine reported that the studio’s most sought-after design in the United States was an insertable band diamond ring, and that a style called Hanabi, or Fireworks, was a favorite in Japan.
It is a family business. Cornelis’s wife, Christa, worked in it from its founding, and their son Walter, who worked alongside his father for a decade and had been designing for the studio for years, has carried it on since Cornelis died in December 2017. The pieces are made by craftsmen in the Scottsdale studio, which is the reason custom and redesign work is possible here in a way it is not at a retail counter.
What to buy
A bespoke engagement ring. The signature: a split shank, a geometric stone, an Art Deco line, designed and made in Scottsdale.
An heirloom redesign. An inherited stone reset in a new design, the studio’s other specialty and often the more meaningful commission.
A finished piece from the cases. For the buyer who wants the house style without the wait.
Parking, timing and the practical stuff
The studio is on Marshall Way’s gallery blocks, a short walk south of the Bronze Horse Fountain at Fifth Avenue and a few doors from Wilde Meyer Gallery. Street parking is scarce; use the free Civic Center garage off Drinkwater Boulevard or the public garage on the Fifth Avenue side near the canal. The Old Town on foot note maps the district and the Main Street Arts District guide covers the galleries around it.
Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the studio open again on Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. for ArtWalk. Thursday night is good for a look; it is not the time to design a ring. For a commission or a redesign, call ahead and come on a weekday, bring any stones you want reused, and plan on more than one visit, since a ring made in the studio takes time.
High season, roughly January through April, brings the winter residents and the busiest ArtWalks, including the themed Gold Palette nights. Summer is quiet on the street, and a better time for an unhurried consultation.
Eat while you’re there
Ponderosa House, a few doors along Marshall Way, is the casual patio lunch. Berdena’s in Craftsman Court is the coffee a block west. For the celebration that follows a ring, FnB in Craftsman Court is the most decorated restaurant in Arizona, and Citizen Public House on Fifth Avenue is the easier walk-in.
How it got here
Cornelis Hollander came to Scottsdale by a long route. Born in Amsterdam, he learned jewelry design in Holland, apprenticed in London, and spent time in South Africa, which Phoenix Magazine called the diamond capital of the world, before emigrating to the United States. In 1984 he founded his own jewelry business in Scottsdale, with his wife Christa beside him from the start.
The timing put him in the arts district during its great expansion. Marshall Way had begun the 1980s as a side street with no galleries on its central blocks; Wilde Meyer opened as the first in 1983, and over the following decade the street filled with galleries, design showrooms and specialist shops. A European studio jeweler fit that mix better than it would have fit Main Street’s Western art and Native jewelry trade, and the studio built its reputation on a modern, sculptural style rather than a regional one.
The family carried the business forward. Walter Hollander worked with his father for about ten years and was deeply involved in design for the last six of them, and when Cornelis died on December 26, 2017, at 69, the jewelry trade press reported that Walter would carry the studio on, with Christa still involved. The company has continued to describe itself as family-owned, with all designs made in its Scottsdale studio.
Four decades on, it remains part of the district’s gallery circuit. The 2026 Scottsdale Arts District visitor guide lists it among the galleries and boutiques, with Thursday ArtWalk hours, which is a fair description of how it works: a jeweler’s studio that shows its pieces as works of art, on a street that has been showing art since the 1960s.