History of the Adirondack Chair

History of the Adirondack Chair
The Adirondack chair was not always known by that name. According to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, it started its life as the Westport chair named after a small town close by the Adirondack Mountains on the edge of lake Champlain.

Thomas Lee first worked out the design of the chair around 1900. Vacationing at his family's house Stony Sides, along with some 22 relatives, he set about designing a truly conformable outdoor chair

Nailing boards together on the front lawn, he asked other members of his family to test prototypes and tell him which were the most comfortable. With this research as a guide, he built a chair with a sloping seat and back. Each chair was made from a single pine board and with the wide armrests that became a hallmark of the Adirondack style. His chair was an immediate success with the family

Thomas Lee's only intention was to furnish his summer home with a few comfortable lawn chairs. His creation might never have become famous, except that Lee offered the design to a friend in Westport who was in dire need of a source of winter income. The friend, Harry Bunnell, had a small carpentry shop. He quickly realized that Lee's chair was just the thing to sell to summer residents of the area.

Without asking Lee's permission, Bunnell filed for a patent on the Westport chair in 1904 and received it in July 1905. In his patent application, Bunnell wrote, The object of this invention is a chair of the bungalow type adapted for use on porches, lawns and at camps and also adapted to be converted into an invalid's chair', After describing the eleven pieces of wood that make up the invention he concluded, "From the above description, it is thought that the advantages of this construction wilt be obvious."

For the next twenty years, Bunnell manufactured the original Westport chair and several variations such as a child's chair and a tete de tete with a shared armrest in the middle. He sold them throughout the region.