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Father Time makes Barnes treasures chime
by Joe Clark, Daily News Staff Writer
Philadelphia Daily News, October 20, 1999
Every Tuesday morning, like clockwork, Nick Valle winds up at the same place.
No matter where his travels may take him the other six days of the week, at 9 o'clock sharp
every Tuesday, you can find Valle at the top of a staircase in a Main Line estate, winding
a 227-year-old clock.
It's the first of 22 antique clocks that Valle winds, sets and checks weekly with unabashed
tender loving care at the Barnes Foundation, home to one of the world's finest art and
antiques collections, in Merion, Montgomery County.
This time-honoring tradition goes back almost 80 years to 1922, when Dr. Albert C. Barnes
and his wife, Laura, settled on the 12-acre estate just across the city line.
"He wanted all the clocks running pretty close to the same time," said Valle,
adding it was customary in those days for the wealthy to hire clockmakers to come to their
homes to wind their clocks.
"They wanted that service," he said. "You wouldn't want your butler taking
care of your cars, would you?"
The 71-year-old clockmaker has been winding clocks - most of 18th-century vintage - at
the Barnes estate for almost 20 years. Most of them are magnificently hand-crafted floor
clocks (a/k/a grandfather clocks) dating as far back as 1720, with a smattering of wall,
desk and mantle timepieces.
Valle usually makes his rounds in 45 minutes, always starting on the staircase of the
foundation office building (the former Barnes residence) and ending in the basement of
the adjoining art gallery.
In between, he winds and sets clocks in the former foyer, living room, dining room,
sitting room, bedrooms, sun room, pantry, kitchen, servants' quarters and an assortment
of other haunts and hallways.
Minutes after the last wind-up comes what one Barnes employee calls the "10 o'clock
symphony," a cacophony of bonging bells and ringing chimes.
Because of a combination of uncontrollable factors (age, wear, workmanship, temperature
and humidity, to name a few) it's one of the few times of the week that the clocks - all
22 of them - strike simultaneously.
Barnes executive director Kimberly Camp describes Valle as "a wonderful part of
the legacy of Dr. Barnes. He is one of the many living legacies around here."
There's a "delicacy" to these old timepieces, she said, and if they weren't
properly tended, "they'd fall into a horrible state of disrepair. But Nick keeps
all of it together."
Nicholas Augustine Valle Jr. began visiting the Barnes homestead long before he
started tending its clocks.
"My dad worked there for 70 years," said Valle. "He started when he was 17.
He worked in the garden, polished the antiques. . .. He did a little bit of everything.
"Sometimes on Sundays when Dr. and Mrs. Barnes were away, he'd take me to work with him.
I was 10, 11 years old. The workers, maids and cooks would make a fuss over me. I remember
seeing all the clocks."
The one Valle remembers most is the 232-year-old timepiece at the top of the gallery's
second-floor steps, opposite a Picasso and not far from a Matisse.
Unlike the others, which run for eight days, the one at the top of the steps is a 24-hour
clock that had to be wound every day, which is why Valle remembers it more than the others.
"Sometimes I'd walk with the watchman - his name was Martin - on his Sunday night
rounds," reminisced Valle, a bachelor. "He would stop at the top of the steps
to wind the clock. It was one of his jobs. That's the one thing I remember, him stopping
to wind the clock."
Down the hall, in an old meeting room that's off-limits to the public, is Valle's favorite.
Made in 1770, this mahogany treasure displays the month, day of the week and phases of
the moon, and it has a sweep second hand.
"It's very unusual," said Valle. "The way it's made, what it has. It's
my favorite."
The oldest of three children, Valle was born and raised around 64th and Callowhill streets
in West Philadelphia. He was 15 when he got a job as a messenger for William A. Heine, a
clockmaker who operated a shop at 40th and Chestnut streets.
"He was known as the clock-repair person," said Valle.
Heine spent most of his time on the road, traveling throughout the city and suburbs
picking up and winding the clocks of the affluent.
Each day, Heine serviced a different area. He spent Tuesdays on the Main Line. Perhaps
that's why Valle still visits the Barnes estate on Tuesdays.
After school and on Saturdays, young Nick was Heine's 45-cents-an-hour messenger,
going to Jeweler's Row to pick up parts.
Within two years, Valle was learning to repair clocks.
When Heine died 25 years ago at the age of 91 ("he was getting ready to go to work"),
one of his employees took over the winding duties at the Barnes. And when that employee
retired, Valle took over.
Valle has worked for a few other companies over the years, and he currently puts in three
days a week at Gordon S. Converse & Co., an antique clock company in Strafford, Delaware
County. But he still returns to the Barnes.
One recent Tuesday morning, Valle was halfway through his rounds when he stopped at the
clock at the top of the steps.
He took out the crank key and, like his friend Martin the watchman did many years ago,
slowly began winding.
"I feel privileged doing this," said Valle. "I feel I'm carrying on a
tradition I remember when I was very young. I remember him doing it. Now I'm doing it."
© 2000 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
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