You may know Pharis and Jason Romero as Juno Award winners, celebrated folk musicians, and makers of some very fine banjos.

Around here, we know them a little differently.

Pharis is a born-and-bred Cariboo girl, after time away, and adventures around the world, found her way back home. Together, she and Jason found a quiet corner in Horsefly, near the river, where they could build a life with their own hands and on their own terms. A home. A family. A garden. A workshop. A business. A creative life with room for music, neighbours, kids, cats, dogs, friends, and the kind of beauty that doesn’t need to announce itself too loudly.

It just lives there.

Their company, J. Romero Banjos, is a small family business based in Horsefly, where they build custom instruments that are as beautiful to look at as they are to hear. Each banjo feels like part instrument, part artwork, part heirloom. The kind of thing made slowly, carefully, and with deep respect for sound, wood, craft, and story.

That same care seems to run through everything they do.

Pharis creates beauty wherever she puts her hands — in music, earrings, gardens, family, friendship, and community. Jason brings a builder’s patience and an artist’s ear. Together, they move to their own beat. Literally. Their songs, their instruments, their home, and their way of life all carry the same feeling: thoughtful, grounded, generous, and deeply connected to place.

This is success, the Cariboo way.

Not louder. Not faster. Not bigger just for the sake of it.

More rooted.

More real.

A life where work and art and family are not kept in separate boxes, but woven together. Where a workshop can sit close to a garden. Where music can travel the world and still come home to Horsefly. Where neighbours become friends, kids grow up with dirt under their nails and songs in the air, and a business can thrive without losing its soul.

Jason and Pharis may be known far beyond the Cariboo, but what they have built here feels unmistakably local.

Handmade.

Heart-led.

A little bit wild.

And completely true.

Cariboo, It’s True