World renown luthier makes Cape St Francis his new home

By Bev Mortimer:

Tucked away on the St Francis wild side a stone’s throw from the crashing waves is one of the five top  guitar makers in the world.

This olde worlde craftsman who has spent half his life perfecting the art of creating stunning guitars for top celebrities and musicians in the world does it all because in his own words he likes to enliven dead wood – “to make trees sing again”.

Photo of Marc Maingard taken by Bev Mortimer

Marc Maingard, the son of French immigrant parents, hailed initially from Durban and after numerous travels he now prefers the rustic, quiet and quaint, seaside-village of Cape St Francis.

“Why here?” I ask him… “I love quiet places. Have just moved from Scarborough that is off the beaten track, but this village is even more so and the water is warmer for surfing.”
He says he has visited this St Francis village many times over the years, having loved surfing there in the past. He always felt this was the place to retire. He took the past four years planning to get here.

He has a huge studio filled to capacity with all sorts of tools a carpenter and luthier would need – shelves upon shelves of them! He is usually to be found here after 11 am each day, he says – a practice he learnt from his junior apprenticeship days when watching his former octogenarian cabinet master almost always in his workshop.

It’s a place where Marc finds solace, where his true creativity can breathe through rare and top class musical instruments formed by his artistic hands. He makes each guitar with such care and perfection and to order mostly on the web, and tailor made, using expensive wood.

He spends at least a month finishing a pricey instrument that fetches upwards of R100 000. His favourite wood is Brazilan rosewood. Guitars fashioned from this exotic wood tend to be great investments because the value of the wood increases as time goes by.

When not crafting, Marc, who is in his early 60s, plays the guitar in orchestras and bands by invitation. His most recent stint that was also most localised was when he joined Wendy Oldfield and crowd at Stix at the end of last month.

Photo: Marc playing in a gig at Stix, Cape St Francis,  with Wendy Oldfield and Joe van der Linden

Marc came from a musical family and played the violin as a Durban boy playing eventually for that town’s junior philharmonic orchestra. Unfortunately an accident prevented him continuing with a violin career. A few years later by chance he picked up a guitar and started strumming – and so his love of guitars was born.

He decided to travel and settled on the UK then Spain followed by India. In Spain he played the guitar in the evenings at various Spanish venues and during the day started learning how to repair guitars. He found he had a knack for crafting wood and decided to pursue a career fixing and fashioning guitars. 

After his first apprenticeship he went to the US to improve his talents by making guitars at the prestigious Santa Cruz guitar company in Los Angeles. After a year honing his skills he returned to his home country and set himself up as a South African luthier.

His big break came when by chance he met Steven Stills (of Crosby Still and Nash) in South Africa and spent a weekend hanging around and playing music with them.  Steven was reported at the time as saying he was  pleased to meet up with Marc whom he described as being one of the world’s best and top guitar makers .

Steven’s recommendations quickly put Marc on the world map and the orders from top clients started rolling in. Today some of his important and famous clients range from collectors to renown musicians and some celebrities, such as Steven Seagal and renown jazz guitarist, Earl Klugh.

This softly spoken man with a long white pony tail, a fairly monastic lifestyle with an almost bohemian way, learnt yoga, plant medicine and discipline in India. Now settled on our shores, he is building a house in Cape St Francis and looking forward to his future here in this “village full of friendly people.”

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