When the new owners of her grandmother Emelina's house removed the reja criolla from the property, Melissa Ramírez created a necklace to immortalize that childhood memory. Now, three years after founding Ural, she is looking to recreate that space in her first permanent store, which opens Nov. 10 in the Callejón del Carmen, in Río Piedras.
For Ramírez, this goes beyond the physical space. "I'm the first in my bloodline" to open a store. She hopes to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother Emelina, the only one who managed to buy a property, after emigrating from Cuba.
"Being able to open after three years, besides validating the project and the feeling — because Ural was born from that feeling of always carrying my grandmother with me — is being able to extend her legacy and her memory, and show my family that all the sacrifice they made emigrating to Puerto Rico was worth it through this project," Ramírez told Platea.
Opening. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, Ural, whose name pays tribute to the street in Río Piedras where her grandmother's house stood, will open its doors from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Several stores in the Callejón del Carmen will join the opening with a themed drink from Double Cake, music from El Cuartito and other integrations.
What will you find at the Ural store?
Local designs. The entrepreneur wants Ural to feel like grandmother Emelina's balcony. To that end, she incorporated terrazzo flooring from Terrazol and furniture by designers and artists Marcos Daniel Vicéns (Palma Verde) and Eduardo Benavent, who work with salvaged reja criolla. The jewelry displays were created by Aníbal Betancourt of DiseÑAME.
"Everything has been made by local hands. The space more or less simulates what the balcony or a grandmother's house was like, especially the house of my childhood," said Ramírez, who spent just over a year renovating the space.
Other brands. In addition to Ural jewelry, the store will also carry clothing, caps and objects from CASSETTE, a multimodal project that blends design and historical archive, focusing on Puerto Rican and Latin sports and music culture, created by Julio Albino, Ramírez's partner.
For the start of the 2026-27 Liga de Béisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente (LBPRC) season, CASSETTE announced a collaboration with the LBPRC to launch RELEVO, a brand created alongside Carlos Ruiz with a collection of five shirts based on Puerto Rican baseball from the 1940s and '50s.
There will also be vintage clothing curated by Ramírez, collectibles and pieces from local artists and Latin American stores, with the possibility of collaborations with other brands.
"Before having Ural, I had a vintage clothing store. I'm bringing that concept back to the store. We're going to have fairly specialized vintage clothing capsules. One will focus on sports and another on women's clothing from the '50s and '70s," she said.
Investment. About $27,000 was invested to set up the space.
Location. It is in the Callejón del Carmen next to the Necromancy Cosmetica store, at 59 calle Azuaga, local 2.
Ural's journey: from markets to a permanent store
Ramírez launched Ural in May 2023 with two necklace designs inspired by rejas criollas, an element of colonial architecture that evolved through the contributions of Puerto Rican ironworkers and that for many represents a family memory.
The first sales came through her online store and at craft markets where she was invited to sell. In 2024, she received an invitation to sell her products at the store of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Late that year, her designs were also added to the store of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR) in Santurce.
In 2025, she took part in the San Juan Impulsa Tu Negocio program, through which entrepreneurs receive municipal investment. She then became part of the first cohort of shops inside Pop-Up San Juan at Río Piedras, a municipal space aimed at giving local entrepreneurs visibility.
"Initially it was six months (at Pop-Up San Juan) and they gave us the opportunity to stay longer, almost a year… Having that space was fundamental because the volume of customers grew, the community grew a lot. We gained a lot of followers. Sales tripled or more," Ramírez said.
The reja criolla as a vehicle of memory
What began as a necklace inspired by the iron grille on her grandmother's house is now more than 15 designs, with variations in necklaces, bracelets and earrings.
First designs. The first necklace design was called Ural, "inspired by the grille on grandmother's house," Ramírez said. It launched alongside the second design, Caparra, which "was the easiest and most affordable grille for blacksmiths to make; it was a very common grille." Ramírez found it in areas such as Caparra Terrace (hence the name), Villa Nevárez and Reparto Metropolitano.
Caparra became one of the brand's best-selling pieces, something Ramírez attributes to her customers' emotional connection with these architectural elements, which remind them of the houses where they grew up or spent time with family.
How she finds inspiration. From rejas criollas she finds in different parts of Puerto Rico. "Each piece I make is connected to the space where I took the reference photo. I look up information about the barrio, about blacksmiths in the area, and I use the archives a lot," she explained. The names come from there as well: Pétalo, Esperanza, Laurel, among others.
A look at memory through a psychology lens
Although Ural is inspired by Puerto Rican architecture, Ramírez has no background in design or architecture. Her academic training has focused on psychology and public health, and she is currently completing a doctorate in psychology research and consulting.
"It was through that social lens that I was able to observe these patterns and how important they are to our society, culture and formation… I try to understand how these things become vehicles of memory," the Ural designer said.
The relationship between memory and everyday objects is also part of her doctoral research, work she expects to share publicly in 2027.
The opening of Ural also represents a return to Ramírez's family roots. As a child, she visited Río Piedras with her grandmother Emelina to buy fabric and walk through the Plaza del Mercado, the same place where her grandfather started out selling pasteles after emigrating to Puerto Rico.
Decades later, she is the one betting on building a business on these streets, where she also studied at the Universidad de Puerto Rico.
"Coming back here is coming full circle," she said.
This content was translated with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
