Lake Como has quite the global cachet: Its dramatic scenery has drawn the likes of Taylor Swift for vacations, George and Amal Clooney have a waterfront villa there and it has been featured in many films, including the 2021 “House of Gucci” and the 2019 Netflix comedy “Murder Mystery.”
The lake region also is home to a family-owned clockmaker that has been creating bespoke timepieces for royalty and wealthy individuals for more than 60 years.
La Vallée is managed by Leopoldo Quintavalle, a son of the founder and now the company president, and his son, Massimiliano Quintavalle, its chief executive.
The company has just 15 workers, including both the Quintavalles themselves and skilled artisans, technicians and watchmakers who can create mechanical movements with astronomical complications and perpetual calendars.
“But everyone can do at least two jobs, that is very important,” Massimiliano said during a recent tour of the factory in the village of Vertemate con Minoprio, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of the lakefront resort town of Como.
The two-floor property, purchased by Leopoldo in the 1970s, houses all the operations of La Vallée, which has a multigenerational identity that extends beyond the Quintavalles themselves. For example, the head of research and development, Luciano Sasso, has been coming to the factory since he was a child because his father, Ricardo Sasso, joined the company in 1987 as its high complication creator.
And many of the company’s artisans have worked here for decades. Claudio Simonetto, for instance, started with La Vallée at age 19 and will celebrate his 30th anniversary with the company next year. Although he now is in charge of technology, Mr. Simonetto once was responsible for the manual sketches of bespoke watches — and their frequent updates — that were used as blueprints before computer-assisted design became common. Today those renderings hang in a large filing archive in the design office.
Among the artisans is Angelo Monti, a master chiseler who started with La Vallée in 1972. On this particular day he was training an apprentice to etch continents into a gold globe that eventually would be added to an astronomical clock. And whirring in the background was a range of milling and technical machinery that Leopoldo had purchased over the years — and that Luciano Sasso now adjusts and modifies so the workers can create the myriad pieces needed for La Vallée’s custom creations.
Turning Points
In the 1930s Antonio Quintavalle established the business as a watch repair and restoration shop in Venice. But in 1954 he moved it, along with his wife and seven children, to Como because a wealthy client wanted a caretaker for his watch and clock collection.
In addition to opening the factory in the 1970s, the company took the suggestion of its retailer in Milan, a friend of Antonio’s, and changed its name from Clessidra, or Hourglass, to La Vallée.
The new label was a twist on the family name — which, in English, means fifth valley. And, Massimiliano said, it was an effort to attract French-speaking Swiss customers.
“It’s difficult sometimes to explain to people that we are fully Italian with a French company name, but that’s the story,” he added. “It represents the trust that my grandfather had in his friend and retailer.”
Another turning point came in 1984, when La Vallée was asked to create a clock more than two meters (or 6.5 feet) high with a rock crystal dial and engraved gold and silver detailing. Its precious materials would have required the company to obtain a special production permit, so Antonio rejected the request. But Leopoldo was inspired.
“It was completely new and I liked the project,” Leopoldo recalled. “This first unique piece was not some strategy but a challenge.” Eventually, he remembered, he got his father’s permission to make the clock, but only if he and Mr. Monti, the chiseler, worked on it in their spare time.
The timepiece — commissioned by Asprey of London for Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman — began La Vallée’s current focus on bespoke clocks. It turned out to be an opportune shift, Leopoldo said, because the carriage clocks that had been a big part of their business were falling out of fashion.
Limited Editions
As the business has partnered with retailers, it notably has chosen family-run companies such as Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Berger in Mexico. “They are passionate,” Massimiliano said, “and are promoting small entities like us.”
Abdul Hamied Seddiqi, the chairman of Seddiqi Holding, said he visited La Vallée’s workshop five years ago, when he was deciding whether to work with the company.
He said he was drawn to its “warm, friendly family style,” and that its flexibility made it an ideal partner in a time when more customers were asking for elaborate high-end custom pieces.
“I was searching for a company like this for a long time,” Mr. Seddiqi said. “There are no more artisans doing this kind of work, with the new generation not keen on this kind of art and workmanship, preferring computers instead. I think today Italy is the only country where you can find such artists.”
While La Vallée has long kept quiet about its creations for private clients, it began to cultivate a more public profile in recent years, creating limited editions for general sale. In 2021, for example, La Vallée introduced the Attimo Golf, a trophy-style clock that stands 54.5 centimeters (about 1.8 feet) tall on a rotating green aventurine base (starting at 120,000 euros, or $140,525).
The Attimo (in English, roughly translated to mean instant or moment) has a diamond-studded ball that inches toward the golfer’s club and then moves on the hour, with the time indicated on a rotating ring. It also has a winding key that can serve as a holder if the owner wishes to display a special golf ball.
The golfer figure typically is sculpted in silver and accompanied by a silver golf bag full of clubs with gold-sculpted heads set with diamonds, but clients can customize each of those features and more. “We wanted to make it personal,” Massimiliano said. “That’s why we decided to give the opportunity to the owner to represent himself on top.”
Attimo is a limited edition of 50 pieces, with the company now making five to 10 a year, depending on the bespoke features.
The golf design was followed in 2022 with the Attimo Polo, featuring a mounted polo player.
Bespoke Heritage
Such designs have inspired other bespoke commissions, Massimiliano said, citing a clock celebrating Mexico’s 2024 elections, with the country’s flag and coat of arms, and an Attimo-style show jumping horse, crafted for a client whose son competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Working from an image of the horse and the son in uniform, the La Vallée team recreated various bespoke elements including the rider’s sunglasses, a personalized helmet, saddle, reins and stirrups.
Such clocks have been of increasing interest to watch collectors, according to Nicholas Foulkes, a watch historian, author and journalist, and the president of the jury of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, an industry awards event.
A clock award was added to the event in 2022, and as of 2023, was to be presented every two years. “Clocks have really taken off, especially as people got used to being at home during Covid and discovered it’s not so bad,” said Mr. Foulkes, who noted that luxury houses such as Chanel, MB&F and Van Cleef & Arpels were making clocks. “You have the whole span of watchmaking on tabletop size.”
In the past year La Vallée has begun releasing more complex timepieces such as the M30TP Aero, which takes its name from the clock’s 30-day power reserve, tourbillon and patented perpetual calendar. The table clock is 1.45 meters (more than 4.7 feet) in length, with a leather-covered aluminum base and a perpetual calendar mechanism that has just seven moving elements (€950,000).
Conceived by Luciano Sasso, the timepiece also channels La Vallée’s bespoke heritage: the escapement can be customized to match the frequency of the owner’s resting heart rate. “The idea,” Massimiliano said, “was to have a totally relaxed state of mind when enjoying and discovering the timepiece.”
The company’s newest design, an astronomical timepiece that La Vallée said also mixed technical innovation with personalization, is to be presented during Dubai Watch Week in November.
After all, Massimiliano said, “Of course you are supposed to be a watch or horology lover — that’s the theory. But it’s not about timekeeping — it’s about yourself.”
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