Adirondack Outdoor Furniture -the History Behind The Name
By Toby Russell
On the shores of Lake Champlain near the Adirondack Mountains of New York is a small town named Westport. The very first Adirondack chair, appropriately named at that time, the Westport chair was invented.

Blue Mountain Lake New York hosts the Adirondack Museum where the history of the interesting and comfortable furniture is displayed for those who are interested.

Thomas Lee, a Westport resident, loved the outdoors and spending time there with a large family. The home they lived in called Stoney Sides had a vast shortage of lawn furniture. As a result, on the lawn in front of his home in 1903, Mr. Lee created a new contraption of nailed together boards to try out as new chairs for the 22 members of his family to sit in and comment on. With all of the family participating, Lee purportedly created the innovative chair we see today complete with slanted back and arms and wider rests for the forearm.

Mr. Lee was acquainted with a carpenter named Harry; so the story goes, the carpenter owned a small shop in Westport. Mr. Lee wanted several of the chairs made so that he had enough for the entire family to use while they were outside talking together. The result was a bit more than he might have asked for and certainly more than he bargained for.

Harry Bunnell concluded that the visitors and full time residents to the town would appreciate Mr. Lee’s prototype chair and that he should make a few more chairs. To sell to them. He saw the potential for a fairly nice profit from the sales of the chair and without Mr. Lee’s knowledge, he took a patent on the chair which was in the process of becoming one of the best known furniture pieces in history, surpassing even very famous antique names.

Mr. Bunnell’s chair became more than widely popular and he experimented on some new versions and variations. Over time the chair became known for the region of its invention rather than the towns and the name evolved into the Adirondack chair. They sold extremely well and made a very nice profit for Mr. Bunnell during his lifetime.

They sold at the time for about four dollars a chair. Today those first chairs built fetch a fairly tidy sum of about 1200 to 1500 dollars each for the original builds.

The Adirondack chair will remain well known and well used due to a simple fact of life that although its not the most attractive design you can't beat it for comfort Generally, a chair will remain popular as long as people can sit comfortably,and with an Adirondack your legs rest better and more comfortably for the slanted seat and the arms have more room to balance your books and a drink on. The Adirondack chair is the epitome of this comfort factor; its popularity and use indicate the comforts offered by it. And over 100 years later its still going strong.

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Toby Russell is the owner of the outdoor and garden furniture website, www.gardenfurnituresuperstore.com which specialises in offering any extremely wide and extensive choice of garden furniture and accessories from leading suppliers