Tuesday to Sunday
The story
A watchmaker's shop, still keeping time.
Hartwell & Sons mended watches at 14 Tallow Lane for ninety-three years. The bench, the regulator clock and the shop bell are still in the room. So is a Hartwell.
The shop
Three generations at one bench.
Elias Hartwell opens a watch and clock repair shop at 14 Tallow Lane, Huntington. Three generations of Hartwells work at the same bench.
The shop took in pocket watches, mantel clocks and, for a few decades, the village's wristwatches every spring when the crowns were wound for summer. Work was done in the front window, where the light was, and anyone walking down the lane could watch it.
Hartwell & Sons closes after ninety-three years. The workbench, the regulator clock and the brass shop bell stay in the building.
What stayed
The bench, the clock and the bell.
Three things were in the building when the lease was signed, and all three still work for a living.
- 1
The bench
Oak, scarred, forty-one small drawers. It stands behind the cheese counter now and holds the wire, the paper and the twine. The drawers are labelled in Elias Hartwell's hand and we have not relabelled them.
- 2
The regulator clock
A watchmaker sets every other timepiece by his regulator. Ours is wound each day at opening and has not been wrong by more than a minute since September. The bar runs on its time, not on anybody's phone.
- 3
The brass bell
It used to say that a customer had come in. Now it is rung once when a booth is ready and twice for last orders, which is the only time anybody minds it.
The name
Why seventeen jewels?
A jewel in a watch is a bearing: a bead of ruby, drilled, that a steel pivot turns in for decades without wearing out. A movement can run on seven. A good one has seventeen, one at every point where metal would otherwise grind on metal. Elias Hartwell stamped the number inside every case he serviced.
- +2The center wheelIt turns once an hour and carries the minute hand. One jewel above, one below.2
- +2The third wheelIt passes the mainspring's push down the line. Two more.4
- +2The fourth wheelOnce a minute. The seconds hand rides on it.6
- +2The escape wheelThe wheel that ticks. It lets the power out one tooth at a time.8
- +2The pallet forkA small lever that rocks back and forth, on two jewelled pivots.10
- +2The pallet stonesTwo slivers of ruby that catch and release the escape wheel. This is the tick you hear.12
- +1The impulse jewelOne pin of ruby on the balance that knocks the fork each way.13
- +4The balance wheelThe heart. Two jewels to hold its staff and two caps to seal them: seventeen.17
The bar keeps the number wherever it can: seventeen bottles open by the glass, seventeen pieces in the largest gift box, and seventeen seconds of stirring in the house Negroni.
2025 to now
The Merrows take the lease.
Paul and Marian Merrow opened Turnspit in Huntington in 1994 with one rotisserie and eleven tables. Their daughter Ada grew up at the pass, left at nineteen, and cooked for eleven years in other people's kitchens. She came home in 2025. Sable Room opened the next spring in the old watchmaker's shop on Tallow Lane, and Seventeen Jewels took the shop's front room that autumn.
- 2025
Ada comes home
After eleven years in other kitchens, the last four on a wood-fired line in Manhattan, Ada Merrow takes the lease on 14 Tallow Lane.
- 2026
Sable Room
Sable Room opens in March in the back of the old shop: one counter cut from a single black walnut, one hearth, one menu a night. It seated sixteen on opening night and twelve from the second.
- 2026
Seventeen Jewels
In September the front room opens as a wine bar, cheese counter and bottle shop. It is named for the seventeen jewels in the movement of a good mechanical watch. The regulator clock still keeps the time.
Who is behind the bar
A Hartwell at the counter, a Farrell at the shelf.
Ada Merrow
Chef and owner
Cooks at Sable Room five nights a week and writes the Turnspit specials on Mondays.
June Farrell
Wine, both rooms on Tallow Lane
Writes the Sable Room list and buys every bottle on the shelves at Seventeen Jewels.
Wren Hartwell
Cheese and the shop
Great-granddaughter of the watchmaker. Cuts every wedge to order.
The family's other rooms
