Hamilton opening retail watch shop at former Bowman Technical School building in Lancaster

• By Chad Umble/LNP | LancasterOnline

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After being empty for more than a generation, the jewelry cases of the former Ezra F. Bowman’s Sons store in downtown Lancaster are being restocked with watches from a second marquee name in Lancaster County’s watchmaking history.

Hamilton, the watchmaking company founded in Lancaster city in 1892, will be opening a store in the first-floor retail space of the former Bowman Technical School building at 147 N. Duke St. that has been virtually untouched, but largely preserved, over the last 32 years.

While Hamilton watches are sold through a variety of dealers, the Lancaster city store will be the company’s only standalone location in the United States. Slated to open July 13, the store will utilize jewelry cases from the Ezra F. Bowman’s Sons store, which closed in 1992.

“Our American roots are on full display with the opening of this store,” Hamilton CEO Vivian Stauffer said in announcing the new store. “In addition to showcasing our current watch collection, we’re also proud to display some historical pieces in a special exhibit inside the store.”

Hamilton closed its Lancaster city watchmaking factory in 1969 and moved production to Switzerland under its Swiss subsidiary. Before the closure, the Lancaster watchmaking plant had 750 employees.

Big names in local history

In 1974 Hamilton was sold to what is now the Swatch Group, a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewelry whose other watch brands include Omega, Harry Winston and Swatch. The former Hamilton Watch Co. headquarters at 917 Columbia Ave. in Lancaster city is now the Clock Towers condominium complex.

The former Bowman Technical School building at the southeast corner of North Duke and East Chestnut streets was bought in April for $900,000 by the owners of Brent L. Miller Jewelers & Goldsmiths, whose namesake graduated from Bowman Technical School in 1976.

The three-story building had been owned since 1998 by Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, who bought it from the last owner of the school which traces its beginnings to 1877. The building still has the original mechanical clocks that face the corner and a rooftop observatory which once housed a telescope students used to check the accuracy of timepieces against the stars.

Over the years Diamantoni said he rejected a variety of development proposals for the building, including several that would have turned the first floor into a convenience store. He also kept the old retail store intact, even rebuffing an offer from Brent L. Miller to buy the antique jewelry cases as Miller was planning its current Manheim Township store at 1610 Manheim Pike, which opened in 2014.

“I think that is fantastic,” Diamantoni said Wednesday when told about the plans for the new Hamilton store. “I’m happy that I didn’t choose to sell the building to somebody that would have had a lesser use.”

Ryan Miller, president of Brent L. Miller, said securing a tenant for the first floor was a key component of the plans to preserve and showcase the history of the building that was built for the school which moved there in 1912.

While uses for the building’s upper two floors haven’t been finalized, Miller said possibilities include using space to host programs on watchmaking, setting up displays of historic timepieces, and offering studio space for local watchmakers.