A Jersey City name, a Jersey City story

Palazzo Watches & Gems didn’t start in a showroom. It started on the streets of Jersey City, four generations ago. Founded in 2024 by Co-Founders Michael Martucci and Mak Khan, Palazzo buys, sells, trades and consigns luxury timepieces from a private showroom at 185 Hudson Street — run by people whose name is on every transaction.

Four generations on the same square mile

In 1907, Michael Martucci’s paternal great-grandfather, Luigi Martucci, came through Ellis Island from Ginestra degli Schiavoni, in Italy’s Campania region, among the first of the family to settle in Jersey City. His maternal great-grandfather, Antonio D’Alessandro, had made the same crossing a few years earlier, from Torre del Sannio. One side of the family put down roots in the Marion section; the other, Downtown. More than a century later, the family is still here — and so is the business that carries its name.

That continuity is the point. Palazzo isn’t a brand parachuted into a market. It’s a Jersey City family doing business in the city it has called home for over a hundred years, a few minutes from the Ellis Island piers where the story began.

Michael Martucci — Co-Founder

Michael Martucci was born in Jersey City. His family moved across the bay to Bayonne when he was three, where he attended Horace Mann Elementary School. At eighteen he came back to Jersey City and never left.

He graduated from St. Peter’s Prep in 2010, then from New Jersey City University in 2016, where he closed his college baseball career as the program’s all-time hits leader and went on to a stint with the Sussex County Miners.

In 2018 he took an oath that still defines how he works: he became a Jersey City police officer, a role he holds to this day. The work taught him scrutiny, accountability, and the discipline of getting facts right when the stakes are real — the same standard he brought to the bench when he co-founded Palazzo Watches & Gems in 2024 alongside Mak Khan. Every watch Palazzo sells is authenticated in-house — movement, dial, and case — before it ever reaches a client, and its box, papers, and history are documented in writing on the invoice.

His name is on every piece that leaves the room. So is his badge number.

Why a police officer sells watches

It’s a fair question, and the answer is the whole reason to buy from us.

A counterfeit market thrives on people who can’t tell real from fake and sellers who’d rather you didn’t ask. Michael spends his professional life on the other side of that — scrutiny, accountability, getting the facts right because the stakes are real. That standard is the bench standard at Palazzo. Every watch is authenticated in-house — movement, dial and case — before it ever reaches a client, and its box, papers and history are documented in writing, on the invoice.

When the people who built the business put their names on it, the incentive to cut a corner disappears.

Fortitudo Honoris — strength of honor

The company’s legal name, Fortitudo Honoris LLC, is Latin for strength of honor. It isn’t decoration. It’s the operating principle: old-world values, discretion, and expertise on every transaction, whether you’re buying your first Rolex or consigning a collection.

That’s what a family name on the door is supposed to mean. At Palazzo, it still does.

The showroom

Palazzo Watches & Gems · Est. MMXXIV
185 Hudson St, Ste 2553, Jersey City, NJ 07311
(551) 345-4998 · sales@palazzowatches.com
Every day 11:00–20:00, by appointment

Browse the collection · Sell a watch · Start a consignment · Book a private viewing