Adirondack style began with a chair

#Middlebury #Kovels

The Adirondack style started with a chair in 1903. Many wealthy folks from the East Coast wanted a cool place to live for the summer, so they started building homes in the Adirondack mountain area. Thomas Lee was vacationing in the Adirondack town of Westport, N.Y., and he wanted comfortable outdoor chairs for his house. He made the chair from 11 pieces of wood and finally decided on the reclining chair with wide armrests now known as the Adirondack or Westport chair. Lee had a local carpenter friend named Harry Bunnell, who made the chairs to sell. Bunnell patented the design in 1905. Lee never received any of the profits.

This is a bookshelf and cabinet made for a house furnished in Adirondack or Rustic style. It is 86 inches high and 46 inches wide. The chest is signed “DZ JR” in the wood. Its price is $6,150.

The houses in the Adirondacks led to other pieces of furniture that were made of local wood, twigs and carving as decoration. The style was very much like Western or Rustic style today. It originally was all handmade of local wood by nearby carpenters. Sometimes there was added paint, or cut-out and applied figures like stars or animal profiles. Pieces are heavy-looking and since they are made of logs, they are heavy to move.

An Adirondack bookcase on chest was in a Skinner auction and sold for $6,150. It had carved diagonal lines on the trim around the two lower cabinet doors, two upper glass doors, plus a decorated center on each cabinet door and some applied burl decoration. Inside are three drawers and two shelves. It’s definitely homemade and one of a kind.

Q: Can these be sold? I have a pair of Royal Purple nylons, with back seam, in their original box. It reads “10 1/2 style 704/4 nutria 1/4” on the end of the box. Are they of value, or should I just give them away?

A: Collectors of vintage clothing are interested in vintage stockings. Royal Purple was a trademark of Sears & Roebuck. Silk stockings were fashionable until nylon was invented. Nylon stockings were introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and were first sold in 1940. Stockings went out of fashion when pantyhose became popular in the 1960s. Royal Purple stockings have sold online for $6 to $35 a pair. The empty box has sold for $4.50.

Current Prices
Sugar bowl, turquoise-blue milk glass, relief grapevines with bunches of grapes, footed, dome lid, grape cluster finial, 1920s, 6 inches, $60.
Bronze bookends, big rig truck, molded, protruding from arched plaque, flaired rounded base, hammered, 1930s, 6 x 6 inches, $405.
Sand pail, Kewpie Beach, Kewpie Castle, Scootles Tourist, tin lithograph, Rose O’Neill, 1937, 3 x 3 inches, $800.
Friendship Quilt, red and white pinwheels, 450 embroidered names, made by women of a church in Iowa, c. 1910, 76 x 92 inches, $2,550.

TIP: Acorn by Georg Jensen, Audubon by Tiffany & Co. and Francis I by Reed & Barton still are very popular sterling-silver flatware patterns wanted by new brides.

For more collecting news, tips and resources, visit www.Kovels.com.

(c) 2018 King Features Synd. Inc.