Hing Wa Lee’s flagship showroom in the Greater Los Angles Walnut neighborhood is being expanded into a 30,000 square foot luxury watch megastore it will rename as The Mansion.
HWL, under chief executive David Lee, is also a major real estate developer in the Eastern LA enclave. Mr Lee is also considered one of the country’s leading supercar collectors and houses some of his peerless collection of rare Ferraris and other marques in a basement garage under the Walnut showroom.
That showroom, anchored by Rolex and Cartier, is already one of the largest in the country at 22,000 square feet, but would leapfrog Zadok Jeweler’s vast flagship in Houston, Texas, to become America’s biggest family-owned store with the addition of 8,000 square feet of retail space.
It is due to be fully remodeled and open by Christmas this year with internal boutiques for Rolex and Cartier.
HWL in Walnut currently also sells Blancpain, Breguet, Roger Dubuis, Hublot, Ulysse Nardin, Girard-Perregaux, Zenith, Chopard, Breitling, Tudor, TAG Heuer, Tissot, Montblanc, Mido and Wolf.
America’s biggest watch and jewelry showrooms
- Tiffany & Co., New York City: 100,000 square feet
- Cartier, New York City: 44,000 square feet
- Chanel, Beverley Hills: 30,000 square feet
- Zadok Jewelers, Houston: 28,000 square feet
- London Jewelers, Manhasset, will be 27,000 total square feet after a current refurbishment is completed later this year
- Radcliffe Jewelers, Baltimore: 26,000 square feet
- Tiny Jewel Box, Washington D.C.: 26,000 square feet
- Hing Wa Lee, Walnut, Greater Los Angeles: 22,000 square feet — expanding to 30,000 square feet
- CD Peacock Oak Brook, Illinois: 20,900 square feet
- Bucherer Time Machine, New York City: 19,000 square feet
- Bucherer Time Dome, Las Vegas: 18,848 square feet
- Gearys adjacent Rolex and Patek Philippe boutiques, Beverley Hills: combined 15,000 square feet
- Hamra Jewelers, Scottsdale, Arizona, 13,000 square feet
HWL’s real estate and supercar investments are put to work with the Walnut showroom expansion.
The company already owns the current showroom’s entire building, known as The Plaza, and is taking over space from vacating tenants.
Mr Lee has also created an installation to delight customers featuring the 2002 Formula 1 Championship winning Ferrari driven to victory by Michael Schumacher, which he owns, and intends to continue rotating supercars from his collection for display in the new store.
The company can also call on its two other showrooms in Los Angeles, Hing Wa Lee in San Gabriel and Larchmont Jewelers in the more central Larchmont neighborhood.
HWL’s diversity is helping the business weather the current economic storms triggered by President Trump’s trade war with China.
Walnut and San Gabriel are both areas with large second- and third-generation Chinese American populations, many of them entrepreneurs that have built businesses based on trade with China.
Mr Lee told WatchPro today that watch sales are already being impacted by the imposition of the Trump administration’s 145% tariff on Chinese imports, which has all-but ended trade between the two countries, in addition to nervousness around falling share prices since the Liberation Day announcement.
Competition, particularly among Rolex authorized dealers, is robust but collegiate in the Greater Los Angeles area with retailers working largely within defined territories across the sprawling region.
On the internationally famous Rodeo Drive, Gearys recently opened one of the country’s largest Rolex boutiques, which will be joined by a neighbouring and adjoined Patek Philippe store in the coming weeks.
Combined, they will have almost 15,000 square feet of retail space.
Hyde Park Jewelers, now part of The 1916 Company, recently upgraded its Rolex-anchored showroom in Newport Beach, to the South of the city.
Bhindi Jewelers has locations to the North and South of the downtown area with two Rolex points of sale.
Most recently, Polacheck’s, which has a flagship in Calabasas, to the West, has opened a Rolex Boutique in Topanga’s Westfield Mall in the Santa Monica Mountains.