Walnut with Brass Inlays Clock

The Romans called the walnut tree Juglans — the royal nut of Jupiter. The wood was considered fit for gods. Some opinions are slow to change.

You've seen walnut before. Or you think you have.

You've seen it stained, faked, photographed under flattering light, and slapped onto particle board in a showroom in a strip mall somewhere off the highway. That is not this. This is the real thing — American Black Walnut, shaped to 24 inches, with the kind of grain that takes thirty years to grow and a lifetime to appreciate.

Look at it. The heartwood is that deep, unmistakable chocolate brown — warm but not sweet, rich but not loud. Then, cutting across the lower half of the face in a wide diagonal band, the sapwood: pale gold, almost blonde, the outer layer the tree was still growing when it came down. Most woodworkers cut it away. It was left here on purpose. That contrast — dark heartwood meeting pale sapwood on the face of a clock — is not an imperfection. It is proof that this was a living thing, and a remarkable one.

Walnut has been the wood of choice for cabinet makers since the English Renaissance, when the finest houses in Europe specified it above all others. When early American colonists began shipping Virginia Walnut back to England in the early 1700s, it commanded immediate premium prices — darker, straighter, and more striking than anything the old forests of Europe could offer. It went into the best furniture, the finest gunstocks, the most prestigious interiors. It has never really fallen out of favor. It just got harder to find.

Into this face, twelve solid brass hour markers are inlaid flush and clean — warm gold against dark brown, no numerals, no fuss. The brass hands carry the same finish. Everything on this clock is in agreement. That is harder to achieve than it looks.

• Face: Solid American Black Walnut with natural sapwood feature
• Hour markers: Solid brass inlay
• Hands: Solid brass
• Diameter: 24 inches
• Movement: Precision quartz
• Finish: Natural Finish
• Handmade — each clock is one of a kind

Thirty years to grow. A lifetime to look at.