Our Story
LsL was founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife couple Lance S. Lerman and Lisa S. Lerman in the garage of their home.
Lance taught banjo in Berkeley, California in 1978. This would lead to Lance’s introduction to the guitar making business at Saga Musical Instruments in San Francisco as their first employee. He would later move to a position at a music store called The 5th String as an instrument repairman. A few years later he would start D&L Instruments with his partner, Joe Deetz where they made electric guitars and basses for a few years until Joe left the company. Eventually the company would be put out of business due to a burglary.
Lance moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and started California Wood Products with the few tools that were too heavy for the burglars to steal. This led to 16 years in business with around 200 employees at what became Sequoia Wood Products until December, 1998. It was during this time that Lance and Lisa met each other at a woodworking convention in 1992, while Lisa was working for Cerwin-Vega as design director.
After establishing a family with Lisa and his daughters in Los Angeles he made the difficult decision to go to China to continue manufacturing. He figured that if you can't beat them, you should join them, so he then went there with the intention of producing some furniture designs he had. It became apparent that if you were going to manufacture a high-quality product in China you had to be there to control the entire process and watch it closely. He spent eight years both building factories and running large furniture and woodworking operations in Shanghai and Dongguan.
LsL’s Beginnings
While Lance was piloting these large operations he was also playing in loud, dank bars as one of the rare American bands playing in China. There he re-acquainted himself with the guitar and how he started his long career in woodworking - making guitars. After eight long years there he realized how hard it was, along with the weight of being away from his family. By 2007 it was time for him to come home to California.
The heavy B-Bender he was playing that whole time was starting to feel old and the whole time he dreamed of a proper 50’s T-Style guitar. He and Lisa are both lifelong woodworkers so they had a fairly nice, well equipped woodshop in the garage. And since he could not purchase the vintage guitar that he wanted, he would make it. So the T Bone was born out of a need for a guitar that played and sounded like the real thing. The kind of instrument that magically sucks the music out of you.
He spent months building jigs, templates, measuring, listening and eventually actually building the guitar. The goal was a '52 style Blackguard. The one Lance made, however, had to be the same- hopefully even better. Then, after a considerable amount of time and effort, the first chord.
“Oh my god” he thought… “is this guitar amazing or is it just me?… Must be me.” So he brought it down to Cal Vintage Guitar and Amp and handed it over to one incredible (and honest), guitar player, Tommy Kay. He's the kind of guy who can play anything in any style in any key at any time. He also wouldn’t pull any punches with his opinions. He was just the type of critic Lance needed. So he handed it over:
"You made this?", "Yes" Lance told him.
"You made the body? You made the neck?"
"I made it all. The body, the neck, the pickguard, everything except some of the metal parts." he replied.
"I'm blown away. Can you make another?"
Whew! He did it. It was exactly what he was going for, that old ’52. Turns out a lot of people seemed to agree with Tommy. So LsL was born. Clearly it's been some kind of miracle. Lance had actually made the guitar he wanted and a lot of other people wanted one, too. The kind of guitar that just sucks the music right out of you!
The rest is history. We all at LsL continue to do exactly that, every day. We make great guitars for great people.