At times, the burden was “palpable” for Joe Frost.

Frost, 44, is a retailer who sells upscale shoes and apparel at Robert Frost Quality, the Front Street shop he and his dad opened in 2008. And while he’s spent many years juggling the various tasks that pile up for a small business owner, one job in particular seemed to carry a bit more weight.

The clock. That clock! The famous Martinek’s clock sits out in front of his shop, and for 16 years, Frost was responsible for winding its mechanisms at least once a week to keep it operational. It also occasionally seized up or began to run slow (it lost about 5 minutes every week, he says), requiring Frost to tweak its intricate gears and reset it.

Frost had the timekeeping torch passed to him by Paul Everts, who owned and operated Martinek's at that location before moving out to Garfield Township. The jewelry shop closed in 2022 after a whopping 144 years in business, though Everts still does part-time repair work.

For a man just trying to sell some shoes and a few crisp polos, the obligation to maintain and operate one of the city’s most iconic landmarks took a toll on Frost as the years went on. As he came to find out, a surprising number of people seemed to rely on – or at least take notice of – the time displayed on its historic face.

“Everybody in the community takes ownership of it, and I truly felt a sense of civic responsibility, in a way,” he tells The Ticker. “At one point I was even confronted by someone from the State Theatre because I failed to keep an accurate time, and evidently some of their patrons showed up late because they relied on that clock.”

As of a few weeks ago, the weight is lifted. Sandra Vozza Jouhet, who bought the building and its privately-owned clock in 2021, recently hired a specialist to restore and fully automate the device. Despite some sources suggesting an earlier origin, the clock was installed almost exactly 100 years ago (April of 1924), and it’s now set to serve the city for another century.

“It’s fair to say that this is a big relief,” Frost says. “I won’t have to worry about something that will take me away from the store, only to come back and find the clock stopped for some reason. Now it’s always going to be as accurate as it can be for everyone, and that’s a step in the right direction.”

Jouhet grew up in Manistee and moved with her family to Traverse City in the early 1980s before eventually moving downstate. As such, she’s familiar with one of the city’s most recognized landmarks.

“When the building came up for sale, a big part of my interest was also acquiring the clock,” Jouhet tells The Ticker. “And it was in great shape, but clearly it needed a little TLC.”

Jouhet first tracked down Steve Knoll, a horologist – someone who studies, builds and repairs timepieces – who worked for the Martinek family in the 1980s. He did some repairs to the century old mechanisms, the first significant work since he and others did a major rehab of the clock in 1985.

But the clock needed more, and Jouhet eventually connected with Lumichron, a Grand Rapids company that works across the country installing new outdoor clocks and repairing older, historic models.

Ian Macartney, Lumichron’s owner and a technician who’s tended to hundreds of large clocks, was thrilled for the chance to work on the device. It’s an old Seth Thomas model, he says, which were very common in the early 20th century but are now relatively rare. Into at least the 1960s, there was a very similar clock in front of what is now the Keen/Eleven building just down the street, though it’s not clear if it was a Seth Thomas.

The Martinek’s clock was in “really amazing” condition for its age, Macartney says, far better than most old Seth Thomas models he’s encountered.

“It really was terrific to work on it, and I was very excited to be a part of it because it’s such a landmark,” he tells The Ticker. “And some people might wonder who needs clocks anymore, but you sure hear about it when they’re not telling the right time.”

Macartney suggested to Jouhet that the clock be updated with electronic, fully automatic equipment that keeps perfect time via GPS and adjusts by itself for daylight savings and after power interruptions. In addition to that work, the clock faces were replaced and replica hands were created to work with the new mechanism.

“It’s a little unfortunate when you have to retire old movements, but there’s definitely a useful lifespan for that stuff,” Macartney says. “And if you repair and restore an antique wind-up clock movement, the maintenance is still endless. Someone’s going to have to take care of it, fiddle with it, lubricate the gears. And that sort of thing is a dying art.”

Jouhet, who also spent a considerable amount of time and money rehabbing the second floor of the building, is glad to have put effort into the clock. It’s a monument deserving of attention and care, she says. And she didn't even consider removing the Martinek's name. 

“I truly feel like the custodian of this treasured and historical landmark,” she says. “I am equally grateful and proud that I am in a position to be able to restore it for all to enjoy for many years to come.”

Knoll, the former Martinek’s employee who rehabbed the clock in 1985, is among the people most grateful for Jouhet’s efforts.

“It’s really neat that it’s going to live on,” he tells The Ticker. “It’s great that she has done all of this work and is willing to keep the clock around. These things usually disappear, more or less, and to have this one still there means something.”