TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

A MASTER CLOCKMAKER REVIVES A DYING ART IN THE UNITED STATES

- STORY: MICHAEL VENUTOLO-MANTOVANI / NYT

Since the late 1940s, 2,566 grandfather clocks have been produced by the Stroup Hobby Shop in the USA. Luther Stroup made 1,866 of them. There is a Stroup clock in all 50 states and each of America's territories, Stroup said, most of which he delivered by hand. Members of Congress own Stroup clocks, and they can be found in many humble churches and civic buildings in Spruce Pine, his small town in western North Carolina.

Stroup knows exactly how many clocks his family members have made because, for the last three generations, they have kept a record of every clock leaving their shop.

Despite piles of cherry wood, mahogany, walnut, maple and oak, tools dusted with a thin layer of sawdust, and machines covered by centimetres of the stuff, Stroup navigates his shop expertly. He knows exactly which drawer holds his ledgers and the ephemera collected from decades of running a small family operation.

Stroup, 75, is a third-generation master clockmaker. He learned the trade from his grandfather, a Baptist minister, and his father, a travelling salesperson, both of whom plied their craft after work hours.

"That's why it's called the Stroup Hobby Shop," Stroup said, as he shoveled a small pile of sawdust into the wood-burning stove at the centre of the shop, the building's only source of heat. "For them, it was just a hobby."