A client came into my shop back in the 80’s with a severely weathered and deteriorated deck chair she’d come into possession of that she wanted to reconstruct and contemporize. It was apparently originally made in the early 1900’s somewhere in New England. After a ‘mock up’ model to confirm the mechanical integrity of the original design, I settled on hard maple for the material both for its appearance and durability. Intrigued by the concept of the piece, I decided to make two chairs and built both at the same time. Currently, some forty years later, on my copy of the chair, the sling seat has been replaced and the maple, now pleasantly seasoned and colored, was steel-wool cleaned for these photos. The stretcher detail, inspired by Greene & Greene was also added. -RW
