Derby craftsman's $25K watches bring Swiss precision to Valley

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DERBY — Watchmaker Lovell Hunter is more than a skilled craftsman. He considers himself a fine artist, crafting handmade timepieces from his Derby home that sell to collectors and aficionados for the price of a mid-sized car.

"It's a work of art, it's something that they can enjoy, not just for precision timekeeping, but it's a thing of beauty," Hunter said.

But Hunter's art is intended for a select few people to see, because the real beauty is on the back.

Hunter's watches feature a "display" back, where owners can see intricate mechanism that controls the watch's movement as it marks the passage of minutes and hours. Developing the skill to handcraft these mechanisms, though, took years. It also took a little help from a community college advanced manufacturing program offered through the Derby schools.

And the privilege of enjoying the product of Hunter's work doesn't come cheap — his watches start at about $5,000 and can reach $25,000.

"You're paying for the aptitude of the artisan," Hunter said. "And so when they can put in these really special mechanisms, yes, the costs will be higher."

Like a fine watch Hunter's company, Love Hunter Watches LLC, is quite small. He doesn't have a website or much of a social media presence, and produces very few watches - single digits though he hopes to expand in the near future - each year.

Hunter also is aware of the contrast in his producing $25,000 watches in a city where one watch would represent nearly half of a typical household's $58,000 annual income.

"I love contrast. And I also love contradictions," he said. "It's coming out of the Valley."

And while no one would confuse the Naugatuck Valley with the mountains of Switzerland, Hunter said he aspires to have his watches be compared to that country's fine watchmaking tradition.

"That's who I work to get my quality to that level and to have that kind of Swiss quality watches coming out of a completely American-made brand," he said. "It's something that I know certain collectors are really excited about."

Hunter's fascination in finding out what makes things tick started in his childhood, when he took apart radios to see how they worked. But it was the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 that solidified his interest in watchmaking.

"That's when it was shown to me that our ability to read the heavens was how we first were able to understand time and to record time, in a way that was consistent, in a way that was precise," Hunter said.

He started with a stint at Tiffany & Co. in New York, then luxury watch retailer Tourneau. By 2006 he was working as a watchmaker for the Swiss manufacturer Breitling, where he stayed until he learned about the Derby manufacturing program, a partnership with Housatonic Community College.

Derby school superintendent Matthew Conway said in 2021 the program was intended for students of all ages.

"The idea behind this from the original conception was to design a program we could offer students during the day and to adults at nights, on weekends and in the summer," Conway said.

Not only did Hunter attend the program, but this year he actually taught it as a substitute.

Hunter said his experience at Breitling allowed him to establish contacts with the kind of high-end customers that purchase his watches, which means he doesn't need an advertising budget. He also realizes that his experience as a Black man in an overwhelmingly white field can be transformative to others hoping to break into various industries, though he said it isn't something he spends much time thinking about.

"I wake up as myself every day," he said. "I don't look in the mirror and say, ‘I'm an African American watchmaker.’ I don't do that. I’m just a watchmaker. What I'm hoping is it broadens what they think they can do."

The next step, he said, it to create opportunities for others to share in his business' growth.

"I want this to grow, so that people who may not have had opportunities like this can be part of something extremely special," he said. "I don't want it to stay in my basement."