Well Strung Guitars Offers Vintage Collection In Cozy Setting

FARMINGDALE, NY — There are mom and pop shops, and then there are father and daughter stores.

David Davidson, 55, and his daughter, Paige Davidson, 27, are preparing to open Well Strung Guitars on 439 Main St., Farmingdale, with a hopeful soft opening date Monday, July 29. Both, to varying degrees, have spent their lives around guitars. However, for the first time, the duo enter this venture as business partners.

The business offers an array of guitars both vintage and gently-used. In addition to buying one, guitar owners can also sell their's; provided it's in good condition.

"People of all ages, from novice players to full-on guitar collectors, could come here and find something that’s perfect for them," Paige Davidson told Patch.

For David, this isn't his first rodeo when it comes to owning a guitar store. He helped run We Buy Guitars, which had opened in Manhattan in 1968. Eventually, he and his business partner moved the store to Bellmore in 2004. Last year, following the retirement of his partner, he decided he wanted to get back onto the retail side of guitars, as opposed to catering to artists and high-end collectors. When launching his new business, he switched up the name from We Buy Guitars to Well Strung Guitars.

"We re-branded the name, started off fresh, and brought in a lot of different varying-priced guitars to try and go cradle to grave with our clients: from the very beginning all the way through their playing," David Davidson said.

All of David's experience came on the heels of his childhood days when he sorted guitar picks by color for his uncle, who owned a guitar store in Port Jefferson.

Naturally, Paige grew up around guitars, too.

"I can’t remember a time where there wasn’t a guitar in my house," she said.

She learned how to play guitar at age 11, took lessons and played through college. A business major in college, Paige spent a short stint post-college in the fashion industry before realizing that wasn't for her. She equated her transition to the guitar world to a switch flipping.

"I was like, ‘This is exactly what I want to be doing. I want to be surrounded by this every single day,'" she said.

Paige then helped her father at Songbirds Guitar Museum in Chattanooga, TN. She started by doing their social media before becoming "the everything girl," as her father called it. She helped set up exhibits and other showcases. When David was ready to re-brand and create Well Strung Guitars, his daughter was his logical choice for a business partner. Naturally, his daughter was chomping at the bit, much to his delight.

"I barely even got the first couple of words out," he said. "It’s the best feeling you could possibly get. You know, very few people get the opportunity to work with somebody that they already know very intensely. Paige has a great business acumen, and she’s very driven."

Paige added "It’s such a unique opportunity for me to be able to work at this level and really get to learn so much more about what I got to watch from a distance my whole life and get to really dive in and work with [David]. He probably knows more than I’ve ever seen anyone know about any topic about guitars."

Farmingdale was always the desired location. Both David and Paige grew up nearby: Plainview and Massapequa, respectively. However, both had spent plenty of time on Farmingdale's Main Street growing up.

"It kind of just became part of my own personal fabric," David Davidson said. "Nostalgia brings you back to places that you love. We saw it becoming very similar to what Huntington and Patchogue have done with their great renewals. We figured we wanted to be here while it was starting, so it was a great opportunity for us, and we’re happy to be here."

David said the goal is to bring back "retail friendliness" when it comes to a small guitar store. Well Strung Guitars is intended to be a "cozy little spot with a comfy couch and comfy chairs" where enthusiasts can practice their music.

Most of the guitars are from the 1950s and 1960s, which is what David has always specialized in.

"The idea that somebody can come in and maybe play the guitar they played when they were in their first band when they were 13 years old or play the guitar that they learned on," he said. "Music has a special place in people’s hearts. We’ll have guitars here that new people can afford and guitars here that experienced players can afford."

The price range varies, though. Vastly. Some guitars are valued around $2,000, while others can be as expensive as $30,000.

However, David said it's ingrained in his business philosophy that he won't sell someone a guitar just for the sake of making money. He feels it's the reason he's only ever had one guitar returned in his entire business career; even then, he and the customer worked out an exchange where both parties were pleased.

"I want somebody to be very happy with what they’re buying," he said. "These are not cheap, and people work hard for their money."

Part of the sales process is allowing the prospective buyer to hold the guitar, which ensures that it feels right to them.

"A guitar is an extension of your body, as a player," Paige Davidson said. "It’s super personal. It’s like your baby. You don’t want anything to happen to it, you want it to remain perfectly intact and it needs to feel right to you. So when we decided to open a retail store, a big part of that was giving people the opportunity to physically hold the guitar."

With the soft opening being planned for next week and the grand opening scheduled sometime in early August, the father-and-daughter Davidson team can start to breathe easy and enjoy what they've done together: Well Strung Guitars is coming to the Farmingdale community.

"There’s such an overwhelming sense of pride," Paige Davidson said. "We made this. No one can ever take that away from you. It doesn’t matter how things go in the future. We put our mind to something, and we created it. This is personal. It’s family, but it’s also a business, and that makes it way better."

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