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6 lakes that gave outdoor furniture its names

Furniture gets named for where people sat in it. Six pieces, six waters.

  1. Lake Champlain, New York. Thomas Lee built the first Muskoka chair on its shore at Westport in 1903. Harry Bunnell patented it as the Westport chair. The history.
  2. Lakes Muskoka, Rosseau and Joseph, Ontario. Cottage country. The chair arrived with the summer people and took the name of the place: the Muskoka chair.
  3. The Adirondack lakes. Saranac, Placid and the rest, where the camps and hotels lined their lawns with the chair and gave it its American name.
  4. Cape Cod. The Cape Cod chair is the same chair with a curved back and rounded seat, named for the beaches it sat on.
  5. The Kennebunk beaches, Maine. The "Kennebunkport" chair is a New England variant with a straighter back.
  6. Lake Michigan. The Michigan porch swing is not a chair, but it was named the same way: for the water in front of it.