Brickhouse Guitars & Pianos

General information

Brickhouse Guitars offers a large selection of acoustic guitars, amps, accessories and expert instrument repair service.

Find a guitar that fits your needs. Choose from over 100 acoustic guitars in our unique and beautiful showroom. We carry world class brands like Stonebridge, Furch, Breedlove, Norman, Bidell, Walden and more. New and vintage instruments for sale.

Waterloo Region Record
By Terry Pender
KITCHENER — Roger Schmidt selects a large-bodied guitar hanging from a display rack, sits on a stool and starts to play. The shop fills with the big, resonant sounds of a well-made instrument in the hands of an experienced finger-picker.

Schmidt is playing the instrument at Brickhouse Guitars, an old house on Lancaster Street that has been transformed into a boutique guitar shop.

Hanging from the walls on the main floor are about 100 guitars. Several humidifiers maintain the correct level of moisture in the air for the instruments. A repair shop is on the second floor.

For the past nine years, Schmidt has worked to open North American ears to the sounds of Stonebridge guitars, which are made by the Furch family in the Czech Republic. Schmidt first heard the instruments at Europe's biggest trade show for musical instruments, Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was selling digital pianos for Technics Canada.

"I was instantly smitten," he says. "I remembered them."

The instruments are made in a region of the Czech Republic called Bohemia, which has a centuries-long tradition of making violins, cellos, double basses and guitars. The guitars have Indian rosewood backs and sides. The sound boards, or fronts, are made with cedar or spruce. The cedar gives a warmer sound for solo finger-picking players. The spruce sound is brighter and crisper for bluegrass and country.

"Finger-style guys, solo-performance artists, they are all over these," Schmidt says as he hangs the $3,400 guitar back on the wall. "They have been compared to boutique North American guitars at two or three times the price."

When Technics Canada closed, Schmidt knew exactly what he wanted to do — sell the guitars made by the Furch family to musicians across Canada and the U.S. It was a gutsy move. The North American market is dominated by four big guitar makers: Taylor, Martin, Larrivee and Gibson. With the audacity of a true believer, Schmidt took on four corporations with little more than a good idea and a great product.

Schmidt, an accomplished finger-style player, bought three Furch guitars with a credit card in 2005 and had the instruments shipped to Kitchener. After loading the car with his wife, kids and guitars, Schmidt set out on a family vacation that covered 14 states and many more music stores. He would walk into the music stores unannounced, introduce himself and play the guitars.

"Everyone was like: 'Gee whiz, these are some of the nicest guitars we have ever played or seen,' and I said: 'That's what I think too,' " Schmidt says.

Nobody liked the name Furch though. So Schmidt changed it to Stonebridge. The name was inspired by the famous Charles Bridge in Prague. The Furch family agreed to the name change for instruments bound for North America through Schmidt's business.

Schmidt bootstrapped the business, running Stonebridge Guitars International out of his Kitchener home. He posted a lot of videos to the web showing well-known finger-style artists using Stonebridge guitars. "We owe a lot of our business to YouTube," Schmidt said.

A recording label called Candyrat Records features finger-style players, many of whom use Stonebridge guitars, and the local guitar company's Internet marketing took off.

"There were artists that went ridiculously viral, and all of a sudden, they were getting millions of views," Schmidt says.

Now he has eight dealers in Canada and 32 in the U.S. His website gets about 1,000 visitors a day.

About five years ago, Schmidt partnered with Ken Wilson, who owns a music store in Guelph — the Octave Music Centre — which sells pianos, guitars and other instruments. It also offers lessons in a variety of instruments. The two first met when Schmidt was with Technics Canada.

Wilson's musical passion is the guitar, playing a cross between classical and finger-style jazz. He has a degree in guitar from McMaster University. He became president of Stonebridge Guitars and handles the business and financing.

"There is a sound that no other North American builder is doing," Wilson says of the guitars. "Both Roger and I believe these guitars have a place in the North American music market."

About two and a half years ago, they decided to set up an office in an old, brick house on Lancaster Street. The shop's name — Brickhouse Guitars — was inspired by the property. Stonebridge Guitars International is based there.

"After we bought it, we started thinking about it: 'Let's make it more than just an office, let's make it a local acoustic shop dedicated to acoustic guitars,' " Wilson says.

Stonebridge guitars are for serious amateurs or professionals and can easily cost $2,000. So Brickhouse Guitars also stocks other makes, including Washburn, Norman, Seagull and Breedlove, that sell for less. There are some acoustic basses too, an archtop f-hole jazz guitar made by Stonebridge and a nylon-string model.

"We have kept it all acoustic because that is what we know the most about and are the most comfortable with," Schmidt said.