Yahoo Lifestyle Greenwich, Connecticut Is One of America’s Best Watch Cities—Here Are the Boutiques to Shop
With just over 60,000 citizens, Greenwich, Connecticut is not a big city, but you wouldn’t know it judging by the watches available for sale there. Greenwich is known as the home of the hedge fund, and the city’s concentrated wealth supports a remarkable watch market as well as one of the most vibrant watch collecting communities in the U.S.
Other than a few brands that have gone boutique-only—such as Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille and F. P. Journe (previously hosted in Greenwich at Manfredi)—pretty much every major watch brand is available within a few short blocks. There are also many exceptional pre-owned and vintage watches for sale, making Greenwich one of the easiest and most fun places to shop for watches.
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Below is the complete guide the watch boutiques in Greenwich, as well as one very special watchmaker.
Manfredi
With a wide range of brands—from Grönefeld, Laurent Ferrier and Parmigiani to De Bethune, Bulgari, Vacheron Constantin, and more—Manfredi’s small footprint will surprise you. The shop offers a warm vibe with a knowledgeable staff who will instantly set you at ease with gracious service.
The watches are all on display at eye-level in custom-built display cases that house drawers full of overstock directly beneath. This configuration allows instant access to the entire stock, as well as standing-level display trays. As a customer, you’ll feel you’re behind the counter, so to speak, as the division between salesperson and customer is diminished in favor of shared enthusiasm.
At the heart of Manfredi is its founder, Roberto Chiappelloni. He grew up on a farm in Italy, found success as a young man running a restaurant in Queens, and bought Manfredi in 1988. He still runs the store every day. He’s warm, thoughtful, opinionated, and elegant. The man also makes a killer espresso. As we sat at his desk and chatted, he said he trains his staff, “…not to show the customer what they know about watches, but that they care about watches.” It’s a sincere sentiment that’s followed up with sincere enthusiasm throughout the store.
Manfredi also has the vintage and pre-owned scene locked down for Greenwich, offering a unique window into the collecting habits of local watch collectors, who seem to flip frequently at Manfredi.
121 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830
Shreve Crump & Low
Right next door to Manfredi, you’ll find Shreve Crump & Low, another family-owned business that’s been going since 1796 in Boston. Yes, you read that right. As the oldest continuously operating seller of luxury goods in the U.S., Shreve Crump & Low created The Davis Cup and the Cy Young Award. The Greenwich location opened in 2014, perhaps indicating more than any other recent event the stature of the small city.
Watch brands on offer include Piaget, Hublot, IWC, Panerai, Bremont, Nomos, and TAG Heuer. The vintage and pre-owned section is always full of incredible pieces, and during our most recent visit, there was an especially interesting selection of Royal Oaks from Audemars Piguet.
The Greenwich store is typically hosted by Brad Walker who, along with his two siblings, now run the business since their father sadly passed away in 2021. Brad is affable, smart, witty, stylish and always sports a watch that punctuates his attire perfectly. The large, open space he commands presents well the grandeur of this storied retailer.
We’d be remiss not to mention Jose Vega, one of America’s best young watchmakers, now on staff at Shreve Crump & Low. Jose is a constant presence in the N.Y.C. collecting scene who possesses a wealth of knowledge about modern and vintage watches of all kinds. And if you want to meet Jose’s wife, you can walk down Greenwich Avenue to our next stop, Betteridge Jewelers.
125 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830
Betteridge Jewelers
Betteridge was a family-run business until November of 2021, when Watches of Switzerland bought the multi-city jeweler, which also runs a boutique in Vail, Colorado. Since the acquisition, there’s been a bit of shake up of brands represented at Betteridge, which now include Omega (previously at Manfredi) but no longer Panerai (now at Schreve Crump & Low). But the long-standing staples remain: Cartier, Patek Philippe, Lange, Rolex, Tudor and Jaeger-LeCoultre, to name a few.
One of the treats of visiting Betteridge has long been the separate Patek Philippe room, which leads to a cozy bar filled with watch books and high-end scotch. It’s the kind of place you want to sit and consider watches late into the evening, for which an ongoing calendar of events may provide an opportunity. Currently, Betteridge is building a larger Patek Philippe boutique next door, which should be open sometime this summer or fall.
Because vintage watch purveyor Analog-Shift was also acquired by Watches of Switzerland, there are the occasional vintage watches available, but as of this writing Betteridge is not offering vintage pieces. However, the Rolex Certified Pre-Owned program is up and running there now, making Betteridge the place to get that hard-to-find Rollie without the wait.
239 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830
Todd Snyder x Foundwell
A little further down Greenwich Avenue, you’ll find a small collection of exceptionally cool vintage watches inside the Todd Snyder shop. These watches are curated by our friend Alan Bedwell of Foundwell, who recently helped us create a video on collecting vintage watches. There will never be a lot of watches in Todd Snyder’s Greenwich location—just as there are always only a few in the N.Y.C. locations—but the stock rotates frequently and is always a point of unexpected horological discovery.
Plus, for up-to-the-minute menswear of exceptional quality, you’ll find all kinds, and the lovely people working there are as friendly, helpful, and stylish as they come.
321 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830
Daniele Watchmaker
No guide to the Greenwich watch scene would be complete without mentioning Daniele Del Vecchio, a former Italian police officer turned high-end watchmaker. Daniele runs a lean-and-mean business well off the beaten path in Greenwich, but don’t let his small establishment fool you: He’s in the big leagues, doing work on multi-million-dollar watches for major auction houses and maintaining major collections.
If Daniele has time—which he rarely does these days—you’ll get an earful of war stories from the world of high-end watch service. He tells us that he is likely the only living watchmaker to open four Patek Philippe 1518s, the storied perpetual calendar chronograph that has long topped auction results. In one instance, a 1518 came through that ended up hammering down for nearly $10 million at Sotheby’s in New York in 2021. When such a watch shows up, Daniele is closed for the day, and armed security holds down the establishment—a befitting result for a man who was once a member of the Carabinieri.
Yes, Daniele will work on your watch, but you will likely have to wait a couple months or more to get it back. This is, of course, true of so many service shops these days, and Daniele’s work will surely be worth the wait.
255-1 Mill St, Greenwich, CT 06830
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