Seth Lang
“You know how the Adirondack chair is really hard to sit in because it falls back?”
My father-in-law popped this question during a recent visit to my family’s new house. I rolled my eyes and nodded. I had always been baffled by their popularity, but had recently found myself lost in a sea of sloping backs, from the cheap plastic knock-offs to those made from skis, all displayed shrine-like in practically every location not taken up by a house or a car. And on the walls (where chairs most certainly do not belong) are photographs of them — sans people — plopped on a waterfront or cozying up to a fire pit.
“I found out why!” he exclaimed. “It was originally built to be put on a hill.”
I swear, at that moment, time stopped and years of aesthetic bewilderment were reconciled. I had spent the better part of a month driving around my new home, admiring the mountains and sloping greenery, not once giving a thought as to how one might sit comfortably among such beauty. Intrigued, I had to learn more, which led me to the story of the Westport chair.
Like all ingenious inventions (and superheroes), the Westport chair was born out of necessity. Thomas Lee, a Massachusetts native and son of Colonel Francis Lee, a prominent investor, spent his summers in Essex County at his family’s Westport house. An avid naturalist, Thomas was very much at home in the Champlain Valley, where he spent many of his days hunting and exploring, not to mention relaxing. It was there that he was inspired to design a chair.
Simply put, he needed outdoor furniture tough enough to make the mountainous landscapes of the Adirondacks comfortable. Anyone who has attempted to place an ordinary lawn chair on North Country soil, only to have it tip dangerously into rivets of sand and buried rocks, knows perfectly well that this was no ordinary Sunday hobby.
He was on a mission.
With carpenters at hand and plenty of family to act as testers, Lee patiently crafted his design. Using wide hemlock trees provided a durable, seamless surface, while the ingeniously constructed angles of seat and chair cradled its user into limb-melting relaxation.
Sometime between 1900 and 1903, the chair was perfected, much to the satisfaction of vacationing relatives and visiting friends. That wasn’t the end of the chair’s glory, but also wasn’t the beginning of a new family fortune. Many claim this loss due to a version of the chair’s design being patented in 1905 by Thomas’ friend, Harry Bunnell, who did make a profit for a time. Though Bunnell’s chair was a bit narrower throughout, it was almost identical to the design Lee had crafted.
Fascinated by the controversial back-story, I searched for any living relatives of Lee’s, stumbling upon Bruce Ware, a realtor in Westport and Thomas’ great-great nephew.
I drove out to speak with Ware, only to find that this was not a malicious tale of a back-stabbing hunting buddy. (My apologies to reality TV fans everywhere.) I knew I wasn’t the first to pop the question of Lee and his chair, so I was surprised when he told me that his “Uncle Tommy” had no interest whatsoever in business ventures and was simply helping out a friend.
“It was a gesture, more than anything else,” mused Ware.
Bunnell was a carpenter with a shop near the Westport Fairgrounds and Lee had come from a wealthy family.
“He had no interest in manufacturing,” Ware explained.
Thus, when Bunnell expressed his concern about a lack of resources for the upcoming winter, Lee happily handed over a copy of his design, encouraging him to sell the chairs for a profit.
After reading Thomas Lee’s chronology, the thought of him giving away what may have been a valuable business venture didn’t strike me as odd in the least.
Lee may have been a Harvard grad, but he was an easy-going mountain man at heart, more at home in nature than anywhere else.
He worked for the Smithsonian for a time after dropping out of Law school, and was a resident naturalist aboard the Albatross for several expeditions.
Ware informed me that his family sold artifacts gleaned from these trips back to the Smithsonian. Photographs of his are also among their inventory.
Ware seemed eager to flesh out his uncle’s history, and as he spoke I clearly understood why. Though now famous for his chair, Lee’s contributions to the Westport area were numerous and by no means inconsequential.
The Lee family owned the first local waterworks, delivering fresh water to the D&H Railroad and the Westport Inn, owned by Alice Lee, Thomas’ sister. They would eventually build a water main to supply spring water to the entire village of Westport, but it was Lee who was the first to share the family spring.
In 1906, while Bunnell was selling chairs, Lee was busy constructing his bottling works, becoming the first to deliver the fresh mountain spring water. Legend even has it that Teddy Roosevelt, a fellow Harvard grad, only served Thomas Lee’s Mountain Spring Water in the White House.
Lee held a strong interest in every community he belonged to. In South Carolina, where he spent his winters, he played a role in educating freed slaves. He helped to incorporate the Agricultural School for Freedmen in Beaufort, where he served as vice president and trustee, and brought his chair design to the Penn School so they could learn to build. To this day, Westport chairs can still be found in South Carolina.
I asked Ware if there was any animosity in his family regarding the chair. He nodded and shrugged, saying that a “patent meant money,” and it had caused bitterness in some of the descendants. He pointed out with a wry smile that, though his Uncle Tommy may have been rich, he wouldn’t have minded a patent himself.
Feelings aside, Ware has done a good job of preserving what history he has of Lee. Both an original Lee glass water bottle and original Bunnell chair are displayed in his realty office. Even more enticing was the perfect replica of his Uncle’s Westport chair design on the back porch of his home.
He escorted my son and I across the street to see it, offering me a seat as I marveled at its rustic, yet flawless design. Perhaps it was the burdening weight of my pregnancy, but I accepted without hesitation.
“You’re the first interviewer to actually sit in it,” he said with a smile as I made myself a little too at home. Ware explained that Lee’s Westport chair was built at a 100 degree angle, versus the 105 degrees of today’s Adirondack chair, making it more comfortable “especially for women.”
I agreed.
I didn’t feel thrown backwards, as I usually do in Adirondack chairs, and the seat lifted just enough to relieve all pressure from my knees and feet, leaving me to melt in a puddle of bliss. That is until my son perched himself on the arm of a Bunnell chair, tipping it over immediately and pinning himself beneath it. Apparently the wider angles of the Westport chair were meant to be more than just aesthetically pleasing.
Ware also explained that the smaller planks of the Adirondack chair were due to foresting of the wider Hemlocks in the 1920s. Beyond the planks, it seems to me that the Adirondack chair holds characteristics of the Westport and the Bunnell, but through its evolution has ultimately become a symbol of its own.
While driving to Westport, I explained to my 6-year-old son why we were meeting Bruce. After a minute of serious contemplation, he turned away from his window-gazing and asked, “What’s so important about a chair?”
Having grown up in Philadelphia, I am no more a native Upstate New Yorker than the Adirondack chair is a rusted metal city-dweller. And though I’m sure the same has been asked regarding the beloved cheesesteak, I must admit I agreed with him at the time. Growing up, my view was stunted to the row of houses across the street. I never even considered that relaxation might have been this thought out and so...well...cherished. Not to mention that a view might stretch for miles, unbroken.
In fact, my only personal encounter with an Adirondack chair was a decidedly unpleasant one. It was 13 years ago when my mom received one for her birthday. She had proudly placed it on the concrete patch of her backyard. After one (unattractive) attempt, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to sacrifice themselves to that unforgiving slant, and ultimately relinquished the struggle, resorting to a folding chair.
Years later, and a mom to two very energetic boys, I crave the absolute rest it gave her. What hadn’t occurred to me before was that the Adirondack chair wasn’t built for socialization. The image of two chairs facing a sunset is a reminder that people can happily co-exist with others while inhabiting their own spaces. They represent a solid, peaceful structure of people and land.
I now understand my mom’s fondness for the sloped back and sinking viewpoint. With so much sky to see, the open posture and upward gaze provides what a stoop or lawn chair never could. Though the chair, I’m sure, may have been happier with a bit of grass.
