October 09, 2024

The Hadley Rille Watches Story

Starting With a Blank Page

Where to start when staring at a blank page? This was a question I first had when the vision to build a watch company grew. It was an exciting prospect, creating a story that had not yet been written. The possibilities were endless but the objective was clear, to create mechanical watches centered around quality, craftsmanship, and precision.

An early Hadley Rille case sketch.

I never set out to become a watch collector but by the time I was a teenager I had developed a carefully curated selection of watches and a deep fascination and wonder for horology. Put simply I had a passion for fine watchmaking. The pillars of great timepieces that stood out to me then stand out to me now: the stories, the detailed craftsmanship, and the timelessness of their designs.

In the rear cockpit of a 1944 SNJ-5 at age 12.

Flight captured my imagination at a young age. It wasn’t a matter of if I would become a pilot but developing patience until I was old enough to be certified. Throughout my childhood my goals focused on adventure. The exhilarating feeling of tearing through the sky in an aircraft and even leaving the bounds of Earth on a rocket captured my imagination and set the course of my life. I had dreams of traveling to the South Pacific and the arctic to recover and restore rare vintage military aircraft abandoned to the depths of time long ago. The pilots, who flew those planes, became my heroes. I collected the watches that they wore: durable, purpose built, precision instruments. My heroes used these watches to track the time and make time count. When these pilots shattered the limits of what was possible in flight, their watches were there to witness it, right on time. Tom Wolfe captured the essence of this in his landmark book The Right Stuff:

“The wristwatches had about two thousand calibrations on them and dials for recording everything short of the sound of enemy guns. These terrific wristwatches were practically fraternal insignia among the pilots." (Wolfe, The Right Stuff).

The Right Stuff: Test Pilots and Apollo 8 Astronauts Anders, Borman, and Lovell (Photo Credit: NASA)

I first flew solo when I was 16 years old nearly a year before I ever drove an automobile alone and I earned my private pilot certificate soon after at 17. Since then, I’ve accumulated experience in a variety of aircraft, weather and to destinations that I only dreamed of as a child. There is still plenty more for me to master, I am constantly learning and expanding my knowledge and capabilities.

First Solo at 16 years old.

Just returned from solo in T-6 Texan II years later.

I worked to learn the complexities of watches and assembled several of my own. As I refined my taste, I set about to design a watch my heroes would have been proud to wear, the first watch for what would become Hadley Rille Watches. Hadley Rille is the namesake of a geographic feature on the moon named after English astronomer John Hadley. The rille is somewhat mysterious; it was formed early in the Moon’s history and is believed to be one of the most geologically significant lunar regions unlocking a glimpse into the origin of the Moon and our own planet, Earth. Are you intrigued? This concept grew into the inspiration for Hadley Rille Watches. Our namesake,from beyond our world and the inspiration for our brand, embodies our inspiration from flight and the durability and precision that is required of professional tools in these environments.

Apollo 15 Astronaut and Lunar Rover overlooking the Hadley Rille on the Moon.

Further reading on John Hadley and his namesake rille here.

From the earliest days of Hadley Rille, I knew that I wanted to build a respected brand crafting dependable mechanical watches capable of performing in the rigorous environments that professionals operate in. I wanted our watches to be classically designed and carefully constructed to stay on time while still being handsomely knocked around. My focus was to develop my designs in Switzerland and in working with some of the most renowned watchmakers in the business we manufactured watches earning the coveted “Swiss Made” designation, a testament to the quality of our watches.

Hadley Rille Escadrille 43

Emerging as a new luxury Swiss watch brand is easier said than done. The history of watch brands currently in business stretch back centuries; their catalogs are a testament to a focus on quality and incremental improvement over the years. So how does a brand break through? By providing a quality offering. It sounds so simple, but there are challenges. Inventory for a production run of our watches comes with expenses in six figures in advance. Additionally, there are considerable production lead times to contend with. More importantly however, is that getting the word out about who we are and what we are creating takes time, and a lot of sweat equity. From the beginning we have been focused on building Hadley Rille the right way. We could have taken an easier path, making lower quality watches but that would have been easier. We began with a commitment to great watches and that will not change. We could have compromised our standards but then our story wouldn’t be great. We are just getting started.