Adirondack – Westport Chair | Westport NY on Lake Champlain

Westport NY on Lake Champlain

Where the Adirondack Mountains meet Lake Champlain

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Adirondack – Westport Chair

The Adirondack Chair has become a fixture for relaxing outdoors thanks to Thomas Lee at his residence in Westport NY.

Needing porch chairs for his large group of family and friends, Lee used a single plank of local hemlock and designed a comfortable chair with slanted back and wide arm rests to hold drinks and food.

Harry C. Bunnell, a friend, hunting buddy, and local wood worker began producing them in his Westport wood shop.

Harry Bunnell, applied in 1904 for a patent for an “Adirondack chair.”  US Patent for the chair. #794,777 was granted June 18 1905. Bunnell began making them for sale. He has been called in various stories as Burnell, Burrell also. The patent application has his signature.

The Patent describes a chair with “solid, parallel, approximately diamond-shaped side pieces.” The “Westport Chair” as known today has parallel side pieces, and a flat, single board back.

Bunnell, apparently later, produced chairs with the sides/legs angled inward toward the rear. The back and arms could then be smaller, saving wood. These chairs are known as “Bunnell” type, and may have his name stamped in the top, rear of the wood back piece.

Chairs with backs and seat of several slats, often curved, are now known as “Adirondack Chairs.”

edited: Bob Carroll, July 2010.