Toronto goes South
In the summer of 1903 an Ontario man named Thomas Lee took his extended family south to Westport, NY, where they had holiday residence. Westport overlooks Lake Champlain, on the edge of the Adirondack Mountains. Needing some outdoor furniture, the ingenious Mr. Lee took a single large board, cut it into eleven pieces, and he built himself a chair. Straight back, reclining at a comfortable angle; somewhat low to the ground; wide, flat arms on which a person could rest a cooling drink against the summer heat.
When the chair was complete and the weary Mr. Lee planted his ass in it, he said to his family “Family, I am the God of Summer Chairs. Fetch me a cooling drink.” And they did, and it was good.
At the end of summer, before packing up his family and returning home to Muskoka, Ontario, the God of Summer Chairs showed his work to a local friend–a Westport carpenter named Harry Bunnell. Bunnell planted his ass in the chair and thought to himself “I will devote the coming winter months to recreating copies of this chair, which I will then sell to summer residents; they will plant their asses in my chairs and I will become wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus and never lack for a cooling drink.”
Without consulting Mr. Lee, Bunnell filed for (and received) a patent on the chair design, calling it The Westport Chair. He stamped the patent number (#794,777) onto each chair and sold them for four dollars apiece. Today they’re worth more than US$1200. For the next quarter of a century Bunnell’s company produced Westport chairs (which became known as Adirondack chair almost everywhere except parts of Ontario, where out of loyalty to Mr. Lee, the God of Summer Chairs, they’re called Muskoka chairs). Bunnell, it must be noted, did not become wealthy beyond the dreams of Croesus. However, it’s true that he never lacked for a cooling drink.
And Mr. Thomas Lee, the God of Summer Chairs? What happened to him? He was apparently indifferent to Bunnell’s perfidy. He was seemingly content to keep his ass firmly planted in the chair of his own design and smile at the machinations of a corrupt world, and refresh himself periodically with a cooling drink.
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