History Lessons
History OF Bald
Mountain Rustics
Over the river and
thru the woods…
to Bald Mountain
Rustics, we go!
Steve and Kathy Bowers
Steve is the furniture and arbor maker while Kathy is the able assistant, staining, organizing and…oh yes, prodding Steve to remain focused. No day-dreaming or becoming one with nature here! “Snap out of it and get to work”!
Steve descends from a long line of golf club makers, which is an unlikely genesis for a rustic furniture maker. The connection is craftsmanship and creativity. Steve’s father is a well known golf club maker, and his grandfather is actually in the PGA Hall of Fame as a club maker and teaching innovator.
At some point a fork in the road presented itself and Steve was drawn in by the beating of those different drums, Congas….or was it Bongos? Anyway, down that different road he went…gone were the green plaid, Sansabelt slacks and Izod golf shirt and in their place was, blue stretch jeans, and rough hewn hiking boots.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
What do we do?
Rustic Furnishings for the Home and Garden.
Steve and Kathy met in Northern New Jersey on a blind date. Kathy from Queens, New York and Steve, from Summerville, South Carolina. Odd couple, you say? Correct-a-mundo! 2 Loons! They settled in a small cabin for a while, on Greenwood Lake, as far north in New Jersey as you can get, and discovered a mutual interest in hiking, gardening and all things rustic.
When did we start?
Fall 1997… Steve and Kathy took a workshop on rustic chair making by Daniel Mack.
Steve’s First Chair…It’s a Beauty!
Steve said, “I’m a natural”! While the instructor suggested, “Don’t quit your day job”! You couldn’t really sit on the little chair, but, Steve wasn’t deterred and started making rustic furniture part time in the spring of 1998, under the name, Buffalo Bill’s Frontier Furnishings, selling chairs, tables and arbors at local Garden Centers and doing occasional commission work.
Gee, Steve, kind’a looks like Buffalo Bill Cody, don’t you think? OK, sadly, the more mature, chubby, Buffalo Bill, not the young handsome Scout. But, hey, there was a day, when Steve was a legend in his own mind!
Where are we?
On Main Street in Keene Valley, New York (Rustic Furniture Heaven), in the heart of the High Peaks Region of the Adirondack Mountains.
Keene Valley From Blueberry Mountain
Steve and Kathy moved to Keene Valley in November 2003. For eight years they had been vacationing in the Adirondacks and then in August 2003, they decided to take a day trip to Lake Placid via Keene Valley. They had always taken the Tupper Lake route and had never been to Keene Valley.
It was a life changing trip. They loved the town and while driving out the other side, heading to Lake Placid, there was an Arts and Crafts Style Bungalow, in need of a little TLC. Within, three weeks, they bought the house and sold their cabin on Greenwood Lake and in November………..they loaded up the truck and they moved to Keene Valley, Movie Stars, swimmin’ pools…..well, not exactly. But it is a great place to live.
2005 was a big year for Steve and Kathy. Steve was one of only 2 new furniture makers to be invited to exhibit at the Rustic Furniture Fair in Blue Mountain Lake. This is the big show for Adirondack Style Rustic Furniture Makers. It is an invitation only show and the best in the country are there. Steve was also invited back in 2006, so life is good at Bald Mountain Rustics.
They also opened a Rustic Furniture Gallery in early July 2005. The Gallery consists of the garden, front porch and the front two rooms of the house. It is a beautifully renovated Arts and Crafts Style Bungalow with an ever expanding cottage garden. The focus is on unique, one-of-a-kind rustic furniture, porch and garden furniture, benches, chairs, tables, lamps and Traditional Adirondack Cabinetry.
The Gallery
The Gallery features unique, hand crafted rustic furnishings, all made in the Adirondacks, or in the mountains of New England, by regional Artisans. In short, made in the USA! Sorry, no Chinese or Mexican Adirondack Furniture. Chinese Adirondack Furniture….that just doesn’t sound right!
Why do we do it?
Because! If a person can work at a job that he or she doesn’t really consider to be a job, rather a passion… or just plain fun…
How lucky is that?
If the commute is the distance from the camera to those 2 doors over there:
And if this is the view from the lunch room:
You’d better be grateful….because you are one lucky son of a golf club maker!
And, that’s a fact!
and other important
info.
I’m happy to tell you that the Westport Chair is an Adirondack original. It was designed in the village of Westport, New York, by Thomas Lee, between 1900 and 1903. Old Tom Lee, as the locals call him, owned a summer cottage in Westport called Stony Sides and in 1900, he decided to build himself the worlds best lawn chair. During the research and development period for his chair, he received critical help in more ways than one, from family and friends…….you might say…….they put their butts on the line for old Tom.
On summer afternoons, the whole clan, diligently, pressed cheeks to wood, ate little tiny sandwiches, with the crust cut off, drank ice tea, watched the sail boats go by on Lake Champlain, and rendered their opinions. The resulting chair was and still is, a fine piece of design work that provides hours of very comfortable sitting. The chairs literally draw a person in and the wide arms provide space for a beer and a sandwich. It’s a beautiful thing.
So, old Tom created the ultimate lawn chair with the seat and back set at a comfortable angle tilted just perfectly. They won’t let me say any more than that, because the details remain a secret to this day. Anyway, the next winter Tom offered a prototype to a hunting buddy named Harry Bunnell. Harry was an out of work carpenter and he was eager to have an opportunity to work and maybe make a few bucks. Harry thought the chair was so good that he submitted a patent application on the chair in 1904 and was granted a patent in 1905. How old Tom felt about that isn’t really clear, but, the rest, as they say is history!
Harry continued to make the Chair until around 1930. Originals are very rare and bare a maker’s mark and they are worth thousands of dollars these days. Who Knew?
Legend has it that the Westport Chair was the original Adirondack Chair. Since Harry Bunnell smartly got a patent on the chair design, other chair makers were prohibited from copying it without paying a patent fee, which led to similar, less complicated knock-offs. Kind of, a dumbed down version of the original. The Knock-offs became what we now know as the Adirondack Chair. They were easier to make and they used slats rather than large slabs of wood, which also made them cheaper to build. Since they were cheaper, they became incredibly popular to the point where now factories in China, Mexico and even here in the Adirondacks turn them out by the millions.
So…that’s the story and to my knowledge it is pretty close to being correct. One thing is for sure, the Westport Chair is a classic and you know it when you see it. After 100 years, there are only a few brave souls still building the beautiful original. Steve is one of those brave souls and his chairs are finished to look like they could have been built by Harry Bunnell. He uses a 5 stage aging process, so people can’t tell if they are old or new.
How are Steve’s chairs different?
Well, let me tell you. He uses thick 1 inch cedar and hemlock boards and sands the wood until he’s almost ready to scream. Then he antiques the wood ‘til it looks like it came from Harry Bunnell’s barn. The real “secret” is the tiny little modifications that make Steve’s chairs perfect for both men and women. In Harry’s day it was a man’s world. But, now it’s not, so, Steve figured that, along with the right to vote, women also deserved the right to have a comfortable chair to sit in. Also, Kathy told him that he couldn’t come in from the shop unless he brought in a comfortable chair for her to sit in. So that’s what he did. The resulting Chair is a little piece of heaven.
It took a while to figure things out, but, he now makes sets of chairs in just about any color, aqua, barn red, dark green and stained. And, then, he finishes them off with 2 coats of SPAR urethane so they hold up to the weather. They’re beautiful!
© 2006 Bald Mountain Rustics
PO Box 489
Keene Valley, NY 12943