1998 Lester DeVoe SP/CY

This 1998 Lester DeVoe is a spruce and cypress peghead flamenco blanca built at Long Look Farm in Maine.

Long Look Farm, Maine

The label is signed “Lester J. DeVoe” and marked “Long Look Farm, S. Paris, Maine, 1998” – from the years DeVoe worked in Maine, between his San José and Nipomo periods.

Sound and Condition

Extremely lightweight and gutsy, with bright, vibrant basses and snappy trebles and DeVoe’s famously easy playability. The guitar was almost like new, with no damage and only minimal wear.

Lester DeVoe: An American Flamenco Master

Lester DeVoe (born 1951) is among the most celebrated flamenco guitar makers of the last fifty years. Self-taught, he began building in 1975 and worked in San José, California, in Paris, Maine, and from the early 2000s in Nipomo, California. He was “discovered” in the 1980s by Sabicas, who played DeVoe guitars for the rest of his career, and his guitars were then embraced by Paco de Lucía, Vicente Amigo, El Viejín and Antonio Rey. He has now retired from guitar making.

The DeVoe Flamenco

DeVoe builds in the style of the old masters, with guitars as light as a feather – comparable in weight to a great Marcelo Barbero or Santos Hernández – and a “flamenco puro” sound: bright, vibrant basses and snappy trebles. Players prize them above all for their playability and balance – even string tension across the strings and up the fingerboard, a fast-releasing picado, precise intonation and low action. His classic rosette is a “roses” design after early José Ramírez guitars, and many players feel his finest guitars date from after 2010.