The Catbird Seat

Lounge Chair, “Spirit Song Chair”
Designer: Robert and Barbara Tiffany for Diamond Teak
Year: 2000
Description: solid teak with stainless steel hardware
Estimated Cost: ~$1100
US Patents: D443,769 (design); 6,824,221 (utility)

Why I picked this chair: I did a Google image search for “wooden chair” and as I was perusing the many images, this chair just jumped off the screen at me. (Figuratively, of course.) I clicked on the link and found “Diamond Teak“, an amazing company with equally amazing indoor/outdoor chairs, benches and tables. The “Spirit Song” line of chairs and benches has received several awards, most notably the “Design Excellence Award” by the International Casual Furniture Show in Chicago. According to their website (and others, as well. I checked.), this is considered the highest award in the world for wooden furniture.
As for the amazing company, it’s founders “began the furniture company as an opportunity to protect the environment and help the local people while developing a successful business.” The teakwood used to make Diamond Teak furniture comes exclusively from reforested, plantation teak in Costa Rica. Here’s an excerpt about the company from teak-furniture-online.com

Diamond Teak provides beautiful solid teak furniture crafted exclusively from reforested trees. In order to ensure a source of consistently superior teakwood that is also environmentally friendly, Diamond Teak develops and maintains their own teak plantations. Many years ago, they planted hundreds of thousands of trees in Costa Rica in an effort to reforest areas of the country that had been completely denuded of forest. The trees are tended with great care and expertise, and in a process spanning decades, they produce the finest teakwood in the world!

The other part of the story is this: my friend, Bonnie, recently went to a Home and Garden Show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and tried one of the Spirit Song benches. She said it was unbelievably comfortable! In fact, she emailed me suggesting that I add this chair to the “Chair of the Week” page the very day that I stumbled onto the Spirit Song Chair, myself! I had been wondering if would be comfortable. She confirmed my suspicions.

Here’s what one of the designers had to say about the comfort of the Spirit Song line (from the company brochure):

“For me no design works until it is perfectly comfortable.
Exquisitely comfortable. I love to see the surprise and delight
when people sit on our designs. ‘Imagine! A wooden seat this
comfortable!’” -Barbara Tiffany

So now I want one. Even though I’ll never be able to afford it.

Maybe I’ll email the owners of Diamond Teak and tell them I feature the “Spirit Song Chair” on my blog. Maybe they’ll be impressed! Maybe they’ll be so appreciative of the free advertising that they’ll give me one for free. (And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.)