SCARBOROUGH – About 10 years ago, Brian Fish broke a beach chair.

Such an event might cause most of us to utter, “Rats,” and then buy a replacement on our next trip to the drugstore.

Additional Photos

Oh Yeah Comfy chairs have higher backs than most beach chairs, so tall people can easily rest their heads in them. Courtesy of Oh Yeah Comfy

Brian Fish tries out one of his Oh Yeah Comfy beach chairs in his Scarborough yard. He builds the folding chairs made of Brazilian cherry wood and a marine-grade fabric in a workshop at his home. The chairs cost $195 plus shipping. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

Brian Fish assembles a beach chair in his Scarborough workshop. He took woodworking classes through Portland Adult Education after he decided to design and build his ideal beach chair. He also is an accounts manager for a software company, but hopes to work full time on his chair business eventually. John Patriquin/Staff Photographer

But for Fish, the event was life-changing.

“I was on a family vacation on the Jersey Shore, and I broke my disposable beach chair and couldn’t find a suitable replacement,” said Fish, 37. “So as I was driving home to Portland, on the Garden State Parkway, I began to think about what it would take to make a really good beach chair. I had always been interested in woodworking, and I thought this would be my excuse to buy some tools.”

Even before he bought tools, beginning with the drive from New Jersey, he began designing the chair in his head. It would be made from wood. It would be sturdy.

And it would be comfy.

Fish took some woodworking classes through Portland Adult Education, and began tinkering with tools in his Munjoy Hill apartment.

A few years later, he was ready to put his new skills to work on his dream of making the world’s best beach chair.

In 2004, Fish began making folding wooden beach chairs under the brand name Oh Yeah Comfy and marketing them mostly through word of mouth and on his website.

“I was thinking about the design, and I actually said that,” said Fish, outside his home workshop in Scarborough. “And some people have said that when they’ve seen the chairs.”

Fish has sold Oh Yeah Comfy beach chairs — retailing for $195 plus shipping — to people all over the country.

His chairs have landed some high-profile publicity too. They were used in a scene in the TV comedy “Scrubs,” and were featured in Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine. They’ve also been in lots of other magazines, and were used in the cover shot for Yankee magazine’s “Best of New England” edition last summer.

“The Yankee cover shot was actually done because the magazine was featuring Inn by the Sea (in Cape Elizabeth), not the chairs,” said Fish. “But Yankee got so many inquiries, they got in touch with me.”

Fish’s chairs certainly are unique. Not many beach chairs are made of Brazilian cherry wood, for one thing.

The wood weathers in a way similar to teak, says Fish, and is rot resistant.

The chairs follow the basic design of a folding beach chair, but with variations and a focus on materials that will last a long time. They are about as low to the ground as your standard beach chair, for instance, but the backs are higher — high enough for a fairly tall person to rest his head.

The wooden arms are wide and slightly curved, following the shape of a person’s arm when it’s at rest. And at about 12 pounds, they are sturdy, but not exactly light.

The seat and back material is Sunbrella, a marine-grade material used for boat covers, among other things. The fabric is attached to the wood using springy lobster-trap cords from a rope maker in Nova Scotia.

“It’s almost like a hammock, with the give you get,” said Fish.

Fish built the first 1,000 chairs himself. Today, he outsources the parts. He buys his Brazilian wood and ships it to National Wood Products in Oxford, where the individual wooden chair parts are made.

Then the parts are shipped to Fish’s house in Scarborough, where he assembles the chairs in his garage workshop.

Right now, Fish’s chair business is what he calls “a hobby business.” He has no plant and no employees, and assembles chairs when he has orders. He said he thought about expanding it into a full-time operation a few years ago, but then the economy went bad.

His full-time job, the one that pays the bills, is his position as an accounts manager for a software company. He does that job from home, so it’s easy for him to slip out to the garage after work to assemble a few chairs.

Fish markets the chairs as being good for the yard, the garden and the lake too. Anywhere you need a comfy folding chair.

Fish still hopes that someday his beach chair business will become his full-time occupation.

“They’re well-crafted and built to last,” said Fish. “I hope that someone will take one of these chairs out of the garage 100 years from now, and it will inspire them to create something.” 

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

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