By Isla Quinn
Sloped seat. Tall back. Big arms. You know the chair. In most places it is called an Adirondack. North of the 49th parallel it is a Muskoka. The story is older than either name, and it did not start in Ontario.
Where it began
Two magazine pieces tell it. One is from Cabin Living, a Canadian cabin-lifestyle site, published in June 2025. The other is an essay in Thousand Islands Life, from July 2021, written in the first person and hedged in places with “as the story goes”. Both are popular writing. Neither is a primary source, and the first cites none.
They agree on the start. Thomas Lee built the first design between 1900 and 1903 in Westport, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. The essay adds that Lee was a Massachusetts resident who summered in Westport and wanted a chair comfortable and stable on local ground. He built several prototypes before settling on one.
Lee’s chair
Sloped seat, higher at the front than the back. Tall, slanted back. Big arms. The essay says Lee’s seat and back were each a single piece of wood.
That did not last. The essay says large, knot-free boards got scarce and costly, and makers switched to several slats. So the slatted back we now think of as “the” shape came partly from a timber problem.
The friend with the patent
Cabin Living says Lee’s friend Harry C. Bunnell filed a patent in 1904 with Lee’s permission. The essay says Lee gave his plans to his hunting friend Bunnell, who modified them and sold the chairs locally, and that Bunnell’s patent for the “Westport chair” was granted in July 1905.
Those two dates do not match. Filing in 1904 and being granted in 1905 could both be true, since a filing comes before a grant. We cannot confirm that from either piece, and neither gives a patent number. So we give both, attributed, and flag it.
The essay says Bunnell ran a successful chair business for about twenty years and each chair carried his signature. Cabin Living adds that his early buyers included tuberculosis sanatoriums, where the wide armrests helped patients sit comfortably.
The fan back
Here the two pieces differ more. Cabin Living says Irving Wolpin added the classic fan-shaped slatted back in 1938. The essay says Wolpin was granted a patent in 1938 for a “Lawn-Chair” that resembles today’s chairs, that he kept the basic shape but rounded the back and contoured the seat, and that he kept the big armrests. The 1905 patent calls it a Westport chair. The 1938 patent calls it a lawn chair.
So both agree on Wolpin, 1938, and a back that changed. They describe the change in different words, “fan-shaped” and “rounded”. We keep both.
How it became a Muskoka
Cabin Living says Canadian retailers began calling it a Muskoka chair in the 1980s, tying it to Ontario’s cottage country. The essay says only that the Muskoka name is used north of the 49th parallel. Nothing we read gives a named person who coined it, and we do not supply one.
The wood
Original chairs were wood. The essay says modern versions also come in plastic and composite and in many colours, and that some fold. It says cedar is considered the ideal wood, though other woods work. That is the essay’s claim and a sensible one, but it is not tested here.
Four names for one chair
The sources use several. Westport chair is Bunnell’s name, from the 1905 patent as the essay reports it. The essay’s patent caption says Westport Plank Chair. Lawn-Chair is the word in Wolpin’s 1938 patent. Adirondack is the name used in most places today, and Muskoka is the Canadian one. The name tells you which decade, or which side of the border, a writer is standing in.
Side by side
- Who built the first one? Both pieces say Lee. The essay adds that he was a Massachusetts summer resident.
- Who patented it? Both say Bunnell. They differ on the year, 1904 or 1905.
- What changed in 1938? Both say Wolpin. One says a fan-shaped back, the other a rounded back and a contoured seat.
- Who first said Muskoka? Neither says.
Dates in order
- 1900 to 1903: Lee builds prototypes in Westport, New York (both pieces).
- 1904: Bunnell files a patent (Cabin Living).
- July 1905: Bunnell’s patent granted (essay).
- About twenty years of Bunnell’s chair business (essay).
- 1938: Wolpin’s patent, with a changed back (both pieces).
- 1980s: Canadian retailers adopt the name Muskoka (Cabin Living).
What the sources do not say
No patent numbers. No count of chairs made. No maker of the first Muskoka-labelled chairs in Canada. The essay’s reader comments include a commercial maker’s endorsement of his own product, and we did not use it.
What kind of sources these are
A lifestyle site and a regional magazine essay. They are good for the outline of a story and poor for dates. A patent database would settle the 1904 and 1905 question, and the Wolpin wording, in an afternoon. That is the next step for anyone who wants this fixed.
What we left out
Prices, including what antique chairs are said to sell for, and any claim about who makes the best modern version. We have no sourced maker to point to.
Why it travels
Because a chair is a reason to stop. A dock, a porch, a rock at the edge of a lake. The story has a Massachusetts summer visitor, a hunting friend and a lawn chair patent, and none of it is in Ontario. That is the fun of it.
Roam first. Shop later.