James "Jim" Fiorentino worked for more than 40 years in the garage door business, but he didn't pursue his true longing until after he retired in 1990.
"He never wanted to be in the garage door business," said his nephew, Fred Fiorentino of St. Michael.
Jim discovered his avocation in the late 1970s when he found a dilapidated cuckoo clock in the basement of the family house. "He restored it mechanically and visually," his nephew said.
If a clock was missing pieces from the decorative wooden pine cones, or stag heads, Jim could reproduce the parts so well that they looked like the original.
Fiorentino died Sept. 30 at age 94 after a short illness.
His nephew isn't sure why Jim was crazy for cuckoo clocks. He started collecting them in earnest in the 1980s. By 1992, he had 117 clocks in his house and decided to move them to a warehouse. For years he cleaned, repaired and displayed the clocks and other collectibles. And in recent years, he created, almost by accident, a museum for them in Minneapolis' North Loop neighborhood.
The museum evolved from a warehouse for the garage door company to a tinkerer's workshop and residence. Jim Fiorentino's former warehouse office, later his bedroom, is in the front of the space so visitors walk through his personal space to get to a lifetime collection of 800 cuckoo clocks, mantel clocks, grandfather clocks, vintage record players, pipe organs, Lake Superior agates made into spheres and World War II memorabilia.
"He collected anything and everything," said Gregg Fiorentino, one of Jim's great-nephews.
Visitors were never drawn in by chiming heard from the street. The clocks in the museum stayed silent under his watch. In a KARE 11 interview in 2014, Fiorentino said, "The cuckoo sound doesn't thrill me at all. It's the craftsmanship."
He liked collecting pieces that weren't from professional woodcarvers or artists but instead from ordinary German farmers who crafted some extraordinary clocks in the mid-1800s to early 1900s.
Fiorentino never advertised to get people into his museum. But he'd often sit outside on the sidewalk in front of his home-shop-museum and wave in passersby from the Bachelor Farmer restaurant across the street.
"His museum felt like it was part of the original spirit of the neighborhood. He was part of its quirks and character," said Eric Dayton, co-owner of Bachelor Farmer.
Jim asked Fred several years ago to help organize the collection. "We started out rearranging the clocks and collections," Fred said. "Then I built three more rooms in the middle part of the warehouse to house some of the most valuable clocks that were packed away." Balconies were added for more display space.
Fiorentino never traveled beyond Iowa for clocks. He would go to garage sales and flea markets on the weekends.
Several years ago, Fiorentino started a foundation so that the museum would survive his death. "I'm a saver, a keeper. This is my life. I want to preserve it," he said in the KARE 11 interview.
"It was important not to charge for admission. He wanted it to carry on forever," said Gregg, who is now chairman of the foundation.
The foundation will also fund scholarships and grants.
Fiorentino is survived by his daughter Maria of Golden Valley, his nephew Fred of St. Michael, and great- and great-great-nieces and nephews. Services have been held.
The museum is open by appointment. Details are found at Clocksandstuff.org or on Facebook under James J. Fiorentino Foundation.
John Ewoldt • 612-673-7633
