Stephen Davy Finds Harmony With Old World Craft
- Sharon Stello
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 50 minutes ago
Laguna Beach resident keeps a traditional trade alive with his business repairing and restoring stringed instruments.
From the street, passersby would never guess what goes on inside the nondescript building at the top of a stone staircase on South Coast Highway. But within these walls, in a workshop filled with special tools, a bespectacled man continues an Old World craft that only a handful of people are skilled enough to perform.
It took years of apprenticeship-style training for Laguna Beach resident Stephen Davy to become a restorer of violins and other string instruments. It’s a profession he wouldn’t trade for the world – meticulously repairing violins, violas and cellos, some dating back as far as the 1600s, and returning them to their original glory for musicians.
“It’s the only thing I really know,” said Davy, 78. “I’ve always been working with my hands ever since I was a child doing woodworking … so this was perfect for me. It’s a solitary kind of thing. It’s very satisfying …. It makes me feel whole, you might say. Even on a bad day, when I walk into the shop, all that goes away and I’m back to where I should be. It’s therapeutic.”
PHOTO 1: Unvarnished violin components in the Laguna Beach workshop of luthier Stephen Davy. The spruce top and the “ribs” or sides of the violin will eventually be assembled and glued together with animal hide glue. PHOTO 2: The Laguna Beach showroom of luthier Stephen Davy, who restores violins, violas and cellos, and his son, Tommy Davy, who restores Django-style guitars. Photos courtesy of Stephen Davy.
A Detailed Operation
Davy is what one might call a surgeon for damaged instruments, dropped off or sent by musicians from across Southern California, the country and the world to be repaired. And fixing them can be a long process. “It depends on what’s needed – if it’s badly damaged, if you have to take it apart. It could take months, even years,” he said.
Among his tools are sharp scrapers, which polish the surface of the violin.
“Different shapes for different purposes,” he said, picking up a few scrapers from a drawer. “This is for shaping the fingerboard. This is for hollowing out the interior of an instrument you’re making. It’s all very specialized. You’ll see lots of tools here that are only used by violin makers, designed for what we do.”
Other steps in the restoration process include restringing and making a new bridge if needed. “Each one is individual to fit the height and design of the instrument,” Davy explained.
He repairs hundreds of instruments per year, but also builds three or four new ones. “I’m always building from scratch,” he said.
In addition to specialized tools, the materials he selects are key to creating a durable instrument that resonates with the perfect sound.
“Well-seasoned maple is the only way you can get a great violin,” Davy said.
A violin typically includes spruce for the top (soundboard); maple – curly maple – for the backs and sides; ebony for the fingerboard; and boxwood for pegs and other attachments.
Most of the wood comes from Europe – although more is entering the market from Asia these days – while some of the hardwood grows in Africa (ebony) and South America (rosewood). Maple is always used for the bridge because of its density. “The older the better,” he said.
Over the decades, Davy’s teachers have gifted him their collections of aged wood, including some that’s more than 150 years old, which he reserves for special instruments. These quality materials, utilized by a talented luthier like Davy, come together to create a masterpiece for musicians.
“A handcrafted instrument, if you know what you’re doing, is always going to be better than imports from Germany or China or wherever,” Davy said. “It’s an ongoing study. I have great materials, great education and we’re always learning more. And if you’re not learning more then you’re not really in this business because there’s so much to know and science keeps producing so much information about the great Italian violin makers like Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati.”
Electron microscopes and analysis of instruments from the 18th century provide great insights about the multilayered finishes, for example. The wood is sealed in a special way with a variety of minerals added to the finish called ground coats. “And then special varnishes go on. These are thin layers – so thin that they’re almost not there,” Davy said.
And these steps, of course, can all affect how the instrument plays. Davy learned to play violin at the age of 24 – at the urging of his mentor – to test out the violins he repairs, adjusting them and making sure they sound just right.
PHOTO 1: A violin's top plate with the f-holes that Laguna Beach luthier Stephen Davy is working on. PHOTO 2: The Laguna Beach showroom of luthier Stephen Davy, who restores violins, violas and cellos, and his son, Tommy Davy, who restores Django-style guitars. PHOTO 3: The Laguna Beach workshop of luthier Stephen Davy, who restores violins, violas and cellos, Standing up is a violin that Davy is making. Photos courtesy of Stephen Davy.
Finding his Rhythm
While Davy had some musical background, primarily as a guitar player in a few bands, he sort of stumbled into this career of fixing string instruments. As a young man, after serving in the Vietnam War and quitting a construction job he couldn’t stand, Davy answered a want ad in The Washington Post while living in the nation’s capital. The job listing said simply: “Knowledge of music important, but not necessary.” It included a phone number and said “Call Ben.” And so he did, and that led Davy on a journey he could have never imagined as a boy from humble beginnings.
Born into a military family – his dad was a naval aviator – Davy moved around a lot during childhood. Davy, his siblings and their parents crammed into a small trailer for many years. “There were four kids in the family and we were very poor,” he said.
Davy, who spent most of his young teenage years in and around Washington, D.C., developed a love of music that was influenced by his father. “My dad was very much into music, not as a musician, but he loved that era of the ’40s – Frank Sinatra and all of that,” Davy said.
The family finally bought a house in a “nice, little Catholic neighborhood” in the D.C. area and some of the kids played guitar, which sparked his interest. “At 14, I got my first guitar,” he said. “Eventually, I was in this little band …. We played the Friday night dance at the junior high and things like that.”
As a young musician, Davy looked up to jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd, a local known for playing in the bossa nova style.
“I got a recording and I was really taken by what he was doing,” Davy said. “And for a quarter, I could get on the D.C. Transit bus and go down to hear Charlie Byrd at The Showboat Lounge. And they would ask me what I was doing there. I probably looked like I was 9. I would always tell them my parents were having dinner … but they weren’t. I would stand out front near the stage next to a phone booth and listen to the great musicians play.
“And one night, Charlie … ended up standing right next to me and he said, ‘You like that stuff, boy?’ So the great Charlie Byrd had this brief conversation with me, which really lit me up.”
Davy bought one of Byrd’s records, on which he played a song called “Nuages,” which means “clouds” in French, by legendary Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. The record just listed him as Reinhardt, leading Davy on a quest to find out who that was.
“I eventually found someone who knew …. They said, ‘Oh, you mean that two-fingered Gypsy?’ … I took some lessons from this gentleman and I learned three or four Django songs and that was sort of the beginning of my interest in what you see here,” said Davy, gesturing around his current studio in Laguna Beach, which he shares with his grown son, Tommy, who plays and restores Django-style guitars. In fact, fairly recently, Reinhardt’s great-grandson even visited the studio.
“These guitars are quite different,” Davy said, pointing out examples in their showroom. “They’re not like a traditional guitar. The shape is different. It has a tailpiece like a violin and a bridge that’s not glued, but it’s moveable. And there’s two styles of this particular guitar, one with what we call the D-hole and one with an oval hole. They were designed to be loud because there was no amplification.”
PHOTO 1: Luthier Stephen Davy tightens strings by turning the pegs on the scroll of a violin in his Laguna Beach workshop. PHOTO 2: Laguna Beach luthier Stephen Davy adjusts the sound post inside of a violin. Photos courtesy of Stephen Davy.
The Beat Marches On
As a teenager in the 1960s, Davy admired Reinhardt, his guitars and music style, but mostly played the tunes of the time. “I had a little bit of a career after high school playing in rock bands and then, lo and behold, I got drafted in 1967,” Davy said.
Davy joined the Air Force “so I wouldn’t end up in the mud in Vietnam” in the Army. Although a bad fall during basic training led to Davy losing his spleen, a brief recovery was followed by orders to serve in the Vietnam War, where he was stationed at Pleiku Air Force Base and put in charge of bombs, rockets and missiles. When not dealing with artillery, Davy and a friend convinced a sergeant to lend them money to buy guitars and amps to play at the clubs at local Army camps.
“Some were underground, under the bunkers, and we weren’t supposed to be doing this,” Davy recalled. “We were AWOL every night.”
After Vietnam, Davy was put on the presidential security detail for Richard Nixon at Andrews Air Force Base, but eventually got transferred to work in an armory.
“This became my first guitar shop,” he said. “No one could get in but me because I was in charge of all these weapons. So I’d have my friends come and drop off their guitar … and I’d work on it. I put in for the midnight shift so I’d start at 8 or 9 and work until the morning, so I had the place to myself.”
Fast-forward to when Davy completed his Air Force service and found that intriguing want ad in The Washington Post that said “Call Ben.”
“So I called Ben, who was the owner of this music company and had six or eight stores in the D.C. area,” Davy said.
Ben hired Davy to work as an assistant to the buyer in the store, which also had a violin shop upstairs. “This Italian man, (Tom Norato) – who played in the National Symphony – he took care of the violins that we rented or sold,” Davy said. “I got to know him pretty well and he liked me.”
After showing Norato a guitar he had worked on, Davy was asked to help in the violin shop. Norato taught Davy as much as he knew about making and restoring violins, then sent him to meet Albert Moglie, who would become his mentor.
“Albert was an Italian violin maker/connoisseur and the curator at the Library of Congress,” Davy said.
“He did all the authentication for the Smithsonian …. I was in over my head, to say the least … but Albert taught me to make my first violins and I was starstruck …. This wonderful gentleman … was world famous. His customers were like Pablo Casals, (Jascha) Heifetz, Isaac Stern and many others including the great violinist Fritz Kreisler.”
Davy practiced by creating copies of one of Kreisler’s violins, which was in the Library of Congress. Moglie continued to train Davy and, after working at the music shop for several years, Davy finally left. Moglie told him, “You have talent. You should go on,” Davy recalled.
The Laguna Luthier
Davy moved to Laguna Beach in 1982 after visiting a friend in the picturesque coastal city, thinking, “How many chances do you get to live in a place like this?” Davy started working for the friend, photographer Rick Lang, who had served with him at Andrews Air Force Base. Lang had a little photography studio and took pictures for Pageant of the Masters. Davy arrived with only $175 to his name and Lang couldn’t pay him much.
“I was in a bad spot with no money and I had a few tools and a violin or two that I had made. I started doing some (violin repair) work out of my little apartment in north Laguna,” Davy said.
In time, he also began working at an art gallery in Laguna and rented a small house from the owner. “I started my little violin business right there,” Davy said.
And he met Diane Challis, now director of Pageant of the Masters, who was assistant director when Davy started taking photos for the show. They eventually married and had a son, Tommy. (Davy also has another son from a previous marriage, who lives back East, as well as three grandsons and two great-grandsons.)
Davy and his wife, Diane, lived in Laguna Niguel until her father, Richard Challis, passed away and left his children the building that housed his longtime Laguna Beach art gallery. Eventually, Davy and his wife moved into that building, living on the upper floor with the music showroom and workshop situated below the apartment.
In addition to making and repairing string instruments, Davy also sells and rents violins, violas and cellos. A young man came in about four years ago and spotted the first violin that Davy ever made. He asked to play it and fell in love with it, convincing Davy to part with it for $9,000.
“I almost would rather I didn’t sell it,” Davy said. “It’s hard to let go of every one that I sell, whether I made it or not. I’m not a very good businessman. You really get attached to these things – at least I do.”
Of all the instruments he’s worked on, Davy’s favorites would probably be a couple of violins by Stradivari and Guarneri because they were made by such renowned luthiers.
“And someone has to trust you (with them),” Davy said. “We’re talking about, for a Strad, $20 million and more. I haven’t had a Strad in a long time. Most of them are in private collections now. They’re just too valuable. And artists don’t own them. They’re generally loaned. Back in Washington, I worked on a number of nice instruments …. One of my customers and a good friend of mine back East entrusted me to do repairs and a restoration on a great Vuillaume (named after the master violin maker from mid-1800s Paris). A beautiful instrument – now worth a fortune.”
Asked whether he has ever worked on an instrument owned by a celebrity-level musician, Davy said no one that the average person would recognize.
“People that play in orchestras (like the South Coast Symphony),” he said. “And some of the people who worked at the Pageant orchestra – very high level people. Beautiful violins. I worked on their instruments. And many years ago in Washington – members of the National Symphony.”
But Davy said he wouldn’t really want to work on high-value instruments like a Stradivarius now because it’s too “nerve-wracking.” “There’s a select group of men who do that kind of work and they’re insured,” he said.
In addition to major restorations, Davy does bow work and repairs at discounted rates for music programs at local campuses like Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach.
Davy said there’s been a resurgence in people getting into the business. “There’s more and more all the time,” he said. In Orange County, he estimates there are two or three others who restore string instruments at a professional level, plus probably eight or 10 violin makers in Los Angeles.
Since moving to Laguna Beach, Davy has had several mentors who helped him to grow in the craft. Those included Karl Roy, headmaster of a German violin making school, and Lewis Main of Long Beach. When the Main shop closed, all of the wood and tools were given to Davy. “I have enough tools for 10 people,” he said.
So many have taught Davy over the years, and he has also mentored a few.
“Back East, mostly,” he said. “And here, I did have a couple elderly men who I taught to make a violin. But I don’t have much time for teaching these days …. And you don’t have the tools …. Are you going to invest thousands of dollars just to build one instrument? And then your first one is not going to be that great.”
Even though Davy has made numerous string instruments over his lifetime, he’s still chasing perfection.
“I just turned 78. In my mind, I’m still a young kid. … I still have that thirst for knowledge,” he said. “I haven’t made my greatest instrument yet.”
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