A Little History...
The Adirondack Chair was originally known as the "Westport Chair", so named for a small town in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. According to the history at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY, Thomas Lee first designed the chair around 1900, while vacationing with his family in Westport, NY. He set out with a plank and some nails to make a chair to be used on porches and in lawns of the summer homes nearby. This prototype was made of 11 pieces of wood, cut from a single board, with a straight back and slanted seat for comfort and the wide armrests which the chair has become famous for.
The chair may have never gotten farther than his backyard but for his friend Harry Bunnell, who had a carpentry shop and needed a winter income. Harry realized the value of the chair to Westport's residents and vacationers. That winter he began producing signed chairs made of hemlock. By 1905, he had patented the Westport Chair and continued producing them for the next 20 years.