Source: Inc.

A mogul from Texas is using the country’s least aspirational city as the backdrop for his next global lifestyle company–a $225 million experiment in manufactured authenticity.

I’m inside the rooftop lair of Tom Kartsotis, the entrepreneur who made hundreds of millions of dollars peddling watches built in Asia, and who, perhaps, will make hundreds of millions more peddling watches built in America. Kartsotis’s private penthouse office sits atop his company’s posh, landmarked building in Man­hattan’s Tribeca, a locale he dips into every few weeks from his home in Texas. Five years ago, after growing Fossil into a $2 billion accessories behemoth, Kartsotis hatched Shinola, a high-end watch brand famous, mostly, for being manufactured in Detroit.

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