Steven Andersen made his first guitar in 1973 in Phoenix, AZ - a local shop was running a guitar building class. Three years later this guitar shop became the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery. Andersen continued to live in Phoenix until 1978 and pursued guitar making there, setting up a small shop, collecting tools, and building several instruments. In 1978, he went to work for the Franklin Guitar Co. a small shop producing  high quality flattop guitars. In 1986, he moved to Seattle, and for the first time started doing a fair amount of repair work, mostly to offset the higher living expenses. One added benefit, though, was working on some excellent archtop guitars from D’Angelico, D’Aquisto, Stromberg and Gibson. Seeing these instruments was both inspiring and instructive, and he began to get serious about building archtop guitars. From the early 1990’s until today his main focus has been building archtop guitars, although he continues to offer mandolins and flattop guitars.