Issues → July/August 2009 → Features →
Adirondack Chairs
(page 4 of 5)
Perhaps it's because they engulf you, or that the backs are sharply angled, but Leonard notes that Adirondack chairs are usually not for socializing. "It's hard to talk to people when you sit in them," he says. "The seat pitch is steep enough that you've got to lean forward, and so it's not conducive to talking. But it makes a great place to sit and read a book or listen to a game."
People will at times put them in a cluster, and more people will show up than there are chairs to seat them. The arms are broad enough that a late arrival can perch on an arm, creating instant multilevel seating. That's good for making a short-term connection--discussing dinner plans or watching the sun slip over the hills--but not for a long discourse. It's best to avoid this sort of arrangement.
The best arrangement, I'm convinced, is two Adirondack chairs off by themselves. Sit in them with a friend or lover, and you're simultaneously by yourself and with another. It's the best approximation of real life that I can imagine.
The Adirondack chair's ability to carve out a personal space amid a public one brings me to another minor point: I've lately seen an epidemic of child-sized chairs. This may make me sound like a crank, but I'm wholly opposed to them.
Full-sized chairs are perfect not just for adults, but also for kids. Watch a 5-year-old climb up and into a full-scale chair, and that little one quickly gets lost in his or her imagination. The chair becomes a castle, a fort, a villa on a lake. The miniature versions make adults happy when they can gaze adoringly at kids sitting in them--so cute!--but notice that the kids invariably look pained, as if wearing shoes too small.
The Goldilocks Project had its most significant breakthrough in Nova Scotia a few years ago. I was driving west from Lunenburg, and what should I see but a grand arc of colorful Adirondack chairs arrayed on a lawn next to a house in the village of Upper LaHave.
A sign indicated that this was Zwicker Woodworking, a moderately large backyard operation. The chairs were painted in what Frank Lloyd Wright used to dismissively call the "colors of the ribbon counter." They were solid, with fan backs, very broad arms, and nicely cambered seats.
Of course, I stopped and sat. The Adirondack chair, like wine, has an entry, body, and finish. The Zwicker chairs' entry was excellent; I stopped leaning back at precisely the point I should. My knees came up to exactly the right height. I didn't require an assist from a passing person to stand up. The chairs didn't feel too rigid--not too oaky, in other words. They were very reasonably priced.
I immediately bought one, which I secured upright to the top of my Volkswagen van for the drive home. Like local druggists' delivery vehicles, which once had a mortar and pestle on their roofs, my van with its iconic chair made me look like a vendor of summer leisure as I drove home. The honks and thumbs-up from passing cars never ceased. Two years later I went back and bought three more.
That was about eight years ago. The chairs now spend the summers at a lake in eastern Maine, which, not coincidentally, is where I also spend my summers. I put two in a clearing just below the house, and two down a path near the water.
An Adirondack chair deteriorates slowly but steadily. I believe an Adirondack chair year is equal to about seven human years--that is, if one lasts a decade outside, it's doing pretty well. The feet go first, and start to get punky where they sit on the damp lawn all summer. You can trim and repaint them to slow the process; they get shorter, lower to the ground, harder to get out of.
Reader Comments
Comment from Don Gamache on July 28, 2009
I love the article. I live away from New England now but an Adirondac chair always makes me feel at home. My first major woodworking project (I was 12, a long time ago) was making one for my Mom. She had it for years. Good memories are made in these chairs.
Comment from Carol Podgorski on July 29, 2009
I really have enjoyed reading this article and have printed it as well . My experience with the Adirondack chair began in Bar Harbor , Maine where my husband and I have been vacationing in either July or August for over ten years . We have also enjoyed " relaxing " in them in the White Mountains . Our backyard has two Adirondack chairs set under the trees and one that has never been used ; we like to have one ready for an " Endless Summer " .
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