About Geoff Yenson

I’m a luthier based in Mendocino County, California, where I build fine acoustic guitars and ukuleles by hand. Rooted in traditional methods and guided by the pursuit of balanced tone, responsiveness, and beauty, my instruments favor classic tonewood combinations and clean aesthetics alongside modern innovation and a musician’s sensibility — instruments designed to breathe and mature over time, to reward years of playing, to bring joy and lightness to the player and the listener.

I began building instruments in 2014 under the mentorship of master luthier David Dart, who has been crafting guitars and mandolins since the 1960s. I continue to work from his shop in Navarro, California, and his tutelage has been immeasurably valuable. From 2017 until 2018, I spent a year working at Santa Cruz Guitar Company fitting dovetail neck joints, doing inlay work, building backs. I draw from both of these experiences on a daily basis at the workbench.

I fell in love with the guitar in the 1990s, when I started listening to grunge and rock on the radio growing up outside of Washington, DC, in northern Virginia. I had fun swapping out components on my own guitars, generally with decent results. My first real repair job was a cracked headstock on my Spanish nylon-string guitar that fell out of a bus in Guatemala, in 2008. In the following years, I’ve worked on hundreds of instruments of all sorts — guitars, mandolins, ukuleles, basses, and more — as well as a wide range of repairs, ranging from standard setups to full structural restorations of vintage guitars.

Every musician develops a unique bond with their most beloved instruments, from a hand-built custom guitar to a vintage mandolin that’s been in the family for generations; I’m honored to help each player unlock the sound and feel of their dreams.

– Geoff