DESMOND GUITARS          NEW SITE !

I was born in Boston Massachusetts 1954 and given up for adoption to Catholic Charities.  Two months later I was adopted by Henry & Muriel Desmond, my wonderful parents.  They raised me and my adopted sister Barbara in Scituate, Massachusetts, a little coastal town about 20 miles south of Boston.  At an early age I showed signs of artistic and musical ability, and as I grew older, these professions would become my livelihood.  After graduating from Scituate High School in 1973, I decided to go into the photography business and graduated from New England School of Photography in 1974.  In 1975, I went to Benjamin Franklin Institute and studied Applied and Industrial Photography, graduating #1 in my class.  After graduation, I quickly got a job as a catalog photographer in West Concord, Massachusetts.  That job didn't last long as they went belly up, so I found a great job in Milton, Massachusetts, just a few miles south of Boston.  That job with Fasch Studio lasted 3 years until the owner retired.  I learned a LOT at Fasch Studio.  That was a very important time in my photography career.  The summer of 1973 I met my high school sweetheart Teresa Schmitz, and we got married in 1978.  (We eventually had 2 wonderful children, Luke and Elizabeth).  We went to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon June 25, 1978.  My first time walking up Main Street USA, I fell in love with Walt Disney World!  I proclaimed to my new wife that "someday I am going to work here as an advertising photographer!"  She laughed in my face!  Eventually (1981) I started my own commercial photo studio at 115 Newbury Street, Boston.  I stayed there for 2 years until they tripled my rent!  At that point I decided to build a large photo studio onto our home in Norwell, Massachusetts.  The studio was incredible!  I ran my commercial photo business out of that studio for about 5 years until I applied for a "Senior Marketing Photographer" job at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida in 1985.  To my surprise, Disney flew me to Orlando for a day of intense interviews.  I did great except for one interview where the guy was brutal to me.  After a week or so, Disney narrowed it down from over 800 applicants to 2 people, me and Steve Powell.  Unfortunately, Steve got the job due to his exceedingly good looks!  I was promised that I would get the next opening in the department.  The nod came in October 1987.  My dream came true and my start date with Disney was October 12, 1987, less than a week after my 33rd birthday.  I worked at Disney as a marketing photographer for 6-1/2 years, until 1994, when I got laid off along with 400 other salaried cast members (BLACK MONDAY).  This was a very tough day in my life.  Thankfully, I started making guitars in 1991 and met the legendary guitar maker Manuel Velazquez at a concert in that same year.  He allowed me to learn from him, which lasted about 17 years!  Though I lost my Disney job (temporarily), I had the guitar making to fall back on, so I thought.  2 weeks after getting laid off from Disney (February 1994), they called me back under various contracts for the next 16 years!  I continued to build my fine classical guitars in between the hundreds of Disney and other photo assignments.  My last contract with Disney ended in April 2013 at which point I decided that I had had enough of shooting for Disney (25 years).  I now am dedicating all of my working time to making fine classical guitars.  My life has been a very good one.  I have always done what I wanted to do, work wise.  Making fine classical guitars is extremely demanding!  It's a LOT harder than shooting fine photographs.  But I enjoy the work.  I love making fine guitars!  It's very challenging and rewarding.  I build very serious instruments.  Each guitar takes me more than 200 hours to make start to finish.  My goal is to have lots of very happy customers!  Most of my customers keep their guitars.  You will seldom find a Desmond guitar up for resale.  Most customers cherish them, for which I am very grateful!                                              

                                                                             Bob Desmond  September 4, 2014