In the lexicon of legendary guitar brands, alongside old stalwarts Gibson and Martin, you could easily slide in the name of boutique guitar maker Santa Cruz Guitar Company and its famous founder Richard Hoover. The high-end guitars, handcrafted in an industrial area in the namesake city of Santa Cruz, are played by everyone from musical legends to campfire strummers. Now as the company turns 50 this year, Hoover is taking a well-earned victory lap. “None of us really know where we are or what we’ve done or what influence we have,” Hoover said, sitting in the store room of his lifelong collection of tone woods. “That’s my purpose, making other people happy makes me happy, and that seems like the right thing to do.” If a guitar can deliver happiness, Hoover’s in the rare company of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Since its beginning in 1976, the company has turned out more than 20,000 guitars into the musical world. “We make a tool for people to express their creativity, both musically and to give voice to their heart and their feelings, their values, through songs that they write, songs that they play,” Hoover said. The ballad of Hoover’s own guitar life began when he got his first guitar at age 13. He was lukewarm about playing it until he met a girl who was into folk music. “The game was on,” he laughed. In 1976, a pair of Santa Cruz locals approached him about starting a guitar building company. As he developed his building skills, he stumbled on a couple of other local guitar makers. He offered to paint a barn or fence in exchange for tutelage. They refused payment. “’No, just pass it on in the same spirit I did for you,’” they then told him. Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover sits in the room holding his collection of guitar tone woods. As the guitar making took shape, Hoover and his two partners sat around over beers, coffee and tea trying to think of what to call their new endeavor. A lawyer who was helping to set up the business finally wrote down Santa Cruz Guitar Company as a placeholder on the forms. The name stuck. “If I had known I’d have to write 400,000 checks with Santa Cruz Guitar Company, I would’ve gotten something simpler,” Hoover chuckled. As the guitar building increasingly produced high-quality guitars, they sold only marginally well due to the fact they didn’t have the name Martin or Gibson on the headstock. It wasn’t until bluegrass legend Tony Rice ordered one, followed by Eric Clapton, that Hoover’s guitars entered the pantheon of the respected guitar world. “At that point we became OK,” Hoover said. Hoover eventually bought out his partners, who moved on from the business, and became the face of the Santa Cruz Guitar Company. His esteem in the guitar world has only risen with the prestige of his custom guitars, which sell for thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. At the heart of the company is the room that holds Hoover’s lifelong accumulation of woods. Brazilian redwood sits next to slats of sitka spruce and Hawaiian koa, cocobolo, adirondack and old mahogany. There are planks from the famously rare mahogany tree felled in Belize in 1965 that’s simply known as “the tree.” Hoover said 40 years ago, a board foot from “the tree” would fetch $10. Today, it’s an astonishing $3,600 per board foot. “It’s unique,” Hoover said, admiring the grain in the long plank. “There was no other tree like this.” He’s focused his wood collecting on sustainable, reclamation woods — like standing dead trees or fallen logs. His collection includes boards of Brazilian rosewood reclaimed from a cathedral in Philadelphia. The company recently built a guitar with elements of John Steinbeck’s boat, “The Western Flyer.” “Wood acquisition is one of my joys,” Hoover said. “I love the people. I love the material. I love the living tree. I love the environments it grows in.” Santa Cruz Guitar Company founder Richard Hoover, right, admires a freshly painted guitar. But just as Hoover’s company turns out guitars, it also turns out guitar makers – hundreds of them. So many that he used to count them at night when he couldn’t sleep. Many went on to build their own guitars or join other companies. However, some prospects weren’t prepared for the work or even the town of Santa Cruz itself. One new hire flew in from Phoenix, took one look at the city and split. “He just decided Santa Cruz was too weird for him,” Hoover laughed. “He went home.” Currently on the roster of builders is Tara Mini, a young woman from the area who not only made it into the shop but has embraced the craft. “Getting to learn from someone like Richard who has been doing this for 50 successfully has been really, really incredible to be part of,” Mini said. The company’s 50th anniversary includes celebrations, concerts and even a series of 50th anniversary guitars. Perhaps for Hoover, the greatest tribute is the millions of notes plunked and strummed on the guitars his company has sent out into the world. It’s a sign he followed the right career path. “I’m actually otherwise unemployable,” Hoover said with a grin. “So I think that was good motivation to stick with it.” ...read more read less