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PROVO — The partially exposed brick wall on the top floor of Reo Stika's guitar shop is an ode to the past: "Sporting goods, hides, furs, etc," it once called out to the world as a billboard painted on the outer wall of a brick building. Now, it serves as a reminder of what used to be and of the legacy of a man who now exists within the building's walls only in memory.
The task of preserving that legacy has fallen to Stika, owner of the Great Salt Lake Guitar Co. He bought the company a year and a half ago from his father, Ken Stika. When Ken Stika passed away last month from esophageal cancer, Stika didn't promise him he would buy that product he loved, or keep everything exactly the way it was. He promised his father he would do what it takes to stay passionate.
"He told me to enjoy what I do, and not to work to the point where I'm not excited to come in to the shop," Stika said. "He told me to keep a bit of balance, which he felt he was never very good at, himself."
The Stika family built the company from the ground up, transforming an old building with one outlet and no running water into a successful business. They built a 2,000-square-foot addition, but they didn't want to change the building too much.
"The wooden floors are the originals, from 1908," Stika said, telling the story of a small hole that can be found under a workbench. "They say there was a sheriff in here, and his gun accidentally went off. It's just things like that that I think are really cool."
For Stika, it is about preserving a legacy: the guitar-building traditions that have been passed down from father to son, ever since Stika started working on guitars when he was 11 years old. The younger Stika built his first guitar at age 18, under the watchful eyes of a father who was passing on a love for something he had never in the past dreamed of doing.
Ken Stika was not particularly musically inclined. He had an excellent ear for tone, but no sense of rhythm. His wife thought he was crazy when one day he brought home a book from the library, expecting to teach himself how to build a mountain dulcimer. But Stika was determined.
The year was 1979, and the Stikas were staying in a Provo hotel after a crab-fishing expedition to Alaska. The sawdust ultimately got to be too much for the hotel's housekeeping staff, so the family opened shop on old State Street. In 1988, they moved to their current building on Center Street, where Ken Stika would ultimately see his son fall in love with his craft.
PROVO — When Ken Stika was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, he decided to use the time he had remaining to make sure he would leave the world with no regrets — and he told his family members the last 10 months of his life were filled with its greatest moments.
"My dad is a very dynamic person," Reo Stika said. "If he'd have died of a heart attack, his memory would probably have been different. But he had time for closure."
When Reo and his wife announced they were expecting a little boy to be named Elliot, Ken Stika decided he would "stick around" for long enough to meet his new grandson.
"He saw his new grandchild when he was two minutes old," Reo said. "Word got out that Liz was in labor, and as soon as Elliot was born, dad was in there, checking him out."
He said his father's body was incredibly weak by the time Elliot was born, but he was not going to let physical limitations stop him from seeing his grandson.
"He said, 'Oh yeah, he's perfect, he's perfect," Reo said. "It really meant a lot to him to be able to see him. He was around quite a bit until the very end."
Two days after Elliot was born, Ken Stika called a family meeting.
"He said, 'That's what I was sticking around for,'" Reo said. "That was our final family meeting. He said everything that needed to be said, and let go."
When the elder Stika found out he had only months to live, he was concerned he would not have time to finish the guitars he had started to build. So his son made a promise: if Ken could brace the tops of the guitars he was working on — to ensure his tone would be preserved — Reo would finish the rest, but the profit would go to his mother.
He's not only finishing what his dad started, but trying to strike the right balance between preserving what his father has done and making the shop his own.
"I got experimental right before my dad's diagnosis, and I had a lot of success with creating the sound I wanted to hear," he said. "I have another year's worth of work to do on that before I start anything new."
He said he'd like to start teaching the art of guitar making in his shop — something that hasn't been done for some time due to the turbulence the shop has seen over the past few years. And he wants to continue to reach out to the music community.
The shop hosts concerts once a month — Friday night's was John-Ross Boyce & His Troubles — and while the company doesn't have the same type of relationship with the local scene as places like Velour, many a local guitar has been repaired by the hands of Reo Stika.
"A lot of people who have played locally have at least been in the shop. Ryan Moore actually plays on a guitar I built for him," he said, referring to the guitarist for the Troubles. Moore is also the guitarist and vocalist for the Eden Express.
Stika normally gives 100 percent of proceeds from the concerts to the bands themselves, because the shop owner wants to give locals the chance to become known. But Moore had a different idea: The band members would show their support for a shop that is a Center Street fixture by doing a benefit concert, with proceeds going to the shop.
"I felt uneasy about it at first, but it was a really gracious thing they offered," Stika said.
It was about giving a local business the opportunity to succeed when the atmosphere has changed both within and without the shop. With a community concerned with revitalization in the present while preserving the past, shops like Stika's have to maintain their relevance while paying homage to days gone by.
"This shop really is an accumulation of my dad's life's work," Stika said. "And with his passing so fresh, it's just kind of comforting to be here in the shop, where I can still feel connected to him. Life would go on for the people who visit if we weren't here, but it means a lot to me that they do come in."
Video: Rob Steffen
