Margaret Ann Lembo, owner of The Crystal Garden in Boynton Beach, leads a group in singing happy 25th birthday to the New Age store. The daylong event included a Q&A session with Lembo, as well as free gemstone and psychometric readings.
Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
The Crystal Garden has thrived for 25 years on the positive attitude of its owner and co-founder.
Margaret Ann Lembo led the audience of mostly women in an impromptu rendition of When You Wish upon a Star at the Boynton Beach shop’s anniversary fete on Aug. 10.
As part of the daylong event, Lembo took some questions before offering free gemstone oracle readings. The first question came from a young woman who said she was stuck in a career rut. She wanted a job in forensics, but she was growing frustrated by the lack of offers. She had the training and education needed.
“Imagine yourself not in a rut,” Lembo said. “The key is imagination. It’s very powerful.” Soon she was singing the Pinocchio theme song and some of the women joined her.
Throughout the afternoon, Lembo held court in the back room where customers sat on folding chairs or plastic lawn chairs with balloons tied to the chair backs. As longtime customers flowed in, she greeted each one with a hug and reminisced about when they met.
Earlier, the store offered free psychometric readings, where practioner Lisa Shaw held a piece of a customer’s jewelry and told each person what she saw. To one woman, Shaw said, “You cut your hair.” The woman agreed. To a man, she said, “I am seeing an ear issue.” He responded that he has vertigo, which made Lembo say, “She’s really good, isn’t she?”
The store — which sells gemstones and crystals, statuary, New Age books, jewelry, meditation CDs and candles — got its start more than 25 years ago when Lembo and then-partner Carol Lonsdale dreamed of opening a shop together. Lonsdale had quit the banking business, as did Lembo, who was a mortgage banker.
“When the stock market crashed in 1987, I was catapulted out of mortgage banking, “ Lembo said.
Soon they were buying quartz crystals in Arkansas, where the Ouachita Mountains are known as the quartz capital of the U.S.
Lembo’s parents, then living in Ocean Ridge, helped her secure the abandoned real estate office at 2610 N. Federal Highway. She and Lonsdale cleaned up the store, scrubbing mildew and wallpaper off the walls, according to a video Lembo showed during the anniversary celebration.
Their money drawer was a cigar box, which Lembo still has. She and Lonsdale parted in December 1996, according to state records.
At Lembo’s 40th birthday party, customers were invited to come as they were in a past life; many showed up as goddesses, the video showed.
These days, Lembo, now 55, has expanded the store’s offerings. At the anniversary celebration, she quoted her late father as saying, “A little bit here, a little bit there — it all adds up.”
She created a line of essential oils that she sells in the store and wholesales to other retailers, such as Whole Foods grocery stores. She’s published two books on crystals and another on chakras. She has angel oracle cards and an eBook on smudging.
The Crystal Garden website (www.thecrystalgarden.com) also has an online books section where different kinds of books are available, not just the ones sold in her store.
Then there are her classes, such as the Angel Messenger Program, a three-day program in September; Chakra Awakening: Crystal Healer Certification Level II, an all-day program; Full Moon Drumming Circle; and New Moon Sound Healing Crystal Singing Bowl Ceremony.
And her webinars, on angel communication and power animals, are offered for those who live out of the area or just need a more convenient time to take the class.
With all of that, she rarely comes to her store as it no longer has office space. She has six workers who run the store for her.
Her birds are integral to the store. Mikael, the white dove, “flies all over the store like the Holy Spirit,” Lembo said. She has had him since 1991. When his mate was alive, they gave out the eggs to customers who signed up to receive them, she said.
Sha Nay, a blue and gold macaw, is the greeter. She is 22 years old.
The birds used to have their own room in the store, but now that room is devoted to gemstones of all kinds and cuts. The stones range from aragonite for 20 cents each to chunks of raw ruby for $11 each. Each gemstone comes with a paper that explains its healing qualities. For example, aragonite is: “Creative Chaos. Directs you toward clarity, organization, and creative solution. Shows you the way into your own center to feel and know the depth of your emotions.”
Two of the more unusual items are a 1-foot-plus ruby in zoisite Buddha head that sells for $3,500, and a 5-foot citrine geode, weighing more than 200 pounds and selling for $8,000. Delivery for the geode is not included, Lembo joked.
She also loves the quartz crystal singing bowls that she uses in her ceremonies. The store sells a variety of colors, sizes and notes, from $175 for a small frosted bowl in root C to $699.98 for a cobalt bowl in G for the throat.
The Native American-made prayer fans feature turkey wing feathers, deerskin, glass beads and raccoon fur. They sell for $100.
The Crystal Garden opened at the height of the New Age movement. The Harmonic Convergence, the world’s first globally synchronized meditation, was in 1987, Lembo said. She attends the International New Age Trade shows each year to sell her merchandise. She defines the store’s typical customer as a woman, between 30 and 70, who is a spiritual-seeker and interested in self-improvement.
As of August, the Crystal Garden’s sales are up 15 percent over the previous year’s period, Lembo said. She declined to reveal specific sales figures.
She hopes to have the time to meet the needs of her customers in the years ahead.
“This store is really a jewel,” said the psychometric reader Shaw when asked to give a general prediction for the next 25 years. “And I see a room with more cushy chairs.”
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