What does an acoustic guitar have in common with architecture? Trip Wyeth for one thing. Trip is an architect with his own firm in Chester and he is also the owner of acousticmusic.org, a Guilford business that sells high-end acoustic guitars, mandolins, and banjos. Acoustic guitars, which do not employ electronic amplification, have been used, Trip says, for more than 3,000 years.

Through acousticmusic.org, Trip is underwriting the production costs of an upcoming benefit concert on Dec. 11 for the Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook.

"The reason I am supporting the concert is so that every penny that it earns goes to charity," Trip explains.

Trip is not only funding the concert's overhead, but he is also performing in it as part of

Moving Target, a group whose members include his wife Sue on bass. Others performers at the benefit include Lauren

Agnelli and Dave Rave, Jim and Liz

Beloff, and Connecticut State Troubadour Lara Herskovitch.

On the wall of his architecture office in Chester, Trip has a

reminder of his alternate world: a favorite guitar called a dreadnought after the British Navy's

famous l906 battleship of the same name. Just as the ship was famous for its great size, the guitar is also known for its deep, large body. A finely crafted guitar, Trip points out, is not only a work of art in

itself, but is then used to create art in another form-music.

Trip says guitars have fascinated him since the time he heard the instrument as a freshman at Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts. He was walking by an open window when he heard what he describes as marvelous music that he judged too vital and immediate to be coming from a record player.

Later that year, at a school

assembly, usually a time to make announcements and list study hall detentions, there was instead a live concert by guitarist and songwriter Gordon Bok.

"I never knew a single acoustic instrument could sound that way," says Trip. "I can still hear it."

Trip loved more than the

music.

"As an unavoidable part of the guitar disease came a love of the instruments," he explains.

He even celebrated the birth of his son with a guitar.

During his wife's pregnancy, Trip decided he wanted to own an L7 Archtop guitar by Gibson. There would be, he realized, a family connection to its purchase. His real first name, he explains, is Leonard. In fact, he is the sixth Leonard Wyeth and his newborn son was to be named Leonard the seventh, so a guitar named L7 seemed only appropriate.

"I guess our family was not too original with names," he says.

Trip, he adds, was a nickname his father, Leonard the fifth, gave him at birth.

Ultimately, Trip turned his

enthusiasm for buying fine

guitars into a business.

"I really wanted to make them available to other people," he says.

Trip sees architecture as a passion as consuming as guitars. For 27 years he worked at Centerbrook Architects, where his wife is still an architect. In 2002, he opened his own firm. He often puts together a team to work on specific projects.

"Part of the luxury of working on your own is picking people who know specific building types," he says.

He loves the sharing of ideas in a peer conference in which everybody learns.

"If you are collaborating like that it is absolutely exhilarating. It is really great stuff," he says. "After 32 years I still look forward to going to work."

He has designed everything from private homes to libraries and college facilities. Some of his work has combined his interests. He has designed several radio stations, including one at Quinnipiac College. His knowledge of sound and recording, he says, was key to the creative process.

He has himself worked in a

recording studio on a CD for a group called Ebin-Rose, which will perform at the upcoming benefit concert. The CD wasn't a great commercial success, but it led to a moment Trip will never forget. Driving with his family across Utah, he heard a song from the Ebin-Rose CD on the radio.

"Hey, I heard it in Utah. That's reward enough," he says.

Trip credits the acoustic guitar store manager, Brian Wolfe, with allowing him to pursue his fascination with both guitars and architecture. Brian staffs the store full-time; Trip is there on

Wednesday mornings and all day Saturday.

In addition, to Moving Target, Trip also plays in a Dixieland group called the Essex Corinthian Jazz Band, which performs Wednesday nights at Bill's Seafood in Westbrook. He has some words of encouragement for anyone contemplating taking up the guitar.

"It's not difficult to play and you can make a pleasing sound at any age," he says. "Besides, it's easier to move around than a piano."

A Benefit Concert for the Shoreline Soup Kitchens & Pantries

Friday, Dec. 11 at 7 p.m.

Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, Old Saybrook

Tickets are $20 at the door. For more information, call 203-

458-2525 or 860-526-4777 or email malematthew@comcast.net or brian@acousticmusic.org.