The Adirondack chair is another iconic chair, always associated with lovely relaxing imagery, usually beside the water. The first Adirondack chair is understood to have been created by Thomas Lee around 1903. Lee was searching for comfortable outdoor furniture for his country cottage in Westport, New York, which is near the Adirondack mountain region of upstate New York, on the banks of Lake Champlain. The story goes that Lee created several prototypes for chairs made out of just eleven pieces of knot-free wood, all from the same tree. His family is said to have tested each prototype chair, and ultimately decided upon the gentle recline and wide armrests of what we now know as the Adirondack chair.
Lee had a friend, a local carpenter named Harry Bunnell, who was in need of some off-season income. Lee showed Bunnell the chair and encouraged him to start making them for the locals. Bunnell immediately saw the appeal of Lee’s creation. Unbeknown to Lee, he applied for a patent on the design, which he received in 1905. Bunnell called them Westport Chairs, and he made out of hemlock or hickory, and sold them very profitably for the next twenty years. Lee never received any of the profit from Bunnell’s savvy business decision, and there is no evidence that he sought any. Whether this is admirable or tragic is up for personal interpretation, though it is generally accepted that Bunnell essentially “stole” the design from Lee.
In the ensuing 114 years, the chair has been adapted again and again. The back is often raked, made out of between 3 and 7 slats of wood instead of the single plank of the original Westport chair. One explanation for this is the difficulty of finding knot-free wood; a single slab of wood with knots and other irregularities is less comfortable than several slats of the same wood, and considerably more expensive. The chairs are typically now made out of pine and other inexpensive woods. There are other versions which are also now made from plastics and metal alloys.
Despite these adaptations, Adirondack chairs are remarkably recognisable, and unflaggingly popular. Their endurance shouldn’t be too much of a mystery: simple, comfortable and unpretentious. Although Thomas Lee created his chair supposedly out of a combination of necessity and economy of materials, there were obviously reasons why the typical late Victorian wrought iron or wicker garden furniture wouldn’t do.
Their rustic and simple design carries with it a timelessness that good design often portrays. And good design means much more than just appeal to the eye – it is much more about how you feel: calm, relaxed and in good company. Today, they are universal signifiers of summertime leisure. Can’t you feel the cooling waterside breeze?
I think I will find some secondhand timber and try my hand at creating a couple of my own.
