At Newport Gliders®, every Glider Rocker is constructed with the finest Hard Maple and Red Oak hardwoods of New England. Besides using the best lumber, each chair has on the average 120 screws or more, 30 or more pin nails, glue applied to every part and 8 high quality precision ball bearings that are rated for 30,000 rpm…now that’s gliding! But it doesn’t stop there…

The Newport Glider® line is available in several finishes. Each chair that goes through our finish line is dip stained and then hand wiped, given a coat of sealer, hand sanded and finally receives a coat of lacquer. During this entire process, each chair is inspected for quality. The Newport Glider® line also has a wide selection of fabrics and colors from which to choose. If you don’t find a fabric that fits your needs, you can provide your own fabric and with our COM (customers own material) program, we will fabricate it to fit any glider frame in our line. Inside the fabrics you will find high quality foam that will provide comfort for years to come.

One sit, and we were hooked When Newport Furniture Parts started building a gliding rocking chair in the mid 1970s, the reception wasn’t what you’d expect.

“It was just a strange piece of furniture,” Newport Glider owner Dave Laforce recalls. “People just weren’t ready for it.”

Oh how times have changed. Today the Vermont-based glider manufacturer keeps their workshop and their craftsmen bustling with custom orders of the now must-have gliders and recliners. And it didn’t take much. Laforce knew it would catch on, and after a few regional furniture suppliers test glided one …

“They were hooked.”

And yet Newport Gliders never rested on their laurels. Today the company continues to invent new features, provide better comfort, and endeavors to create the most incredible experience of what all of us really need day-to-day... a good, peaceful sit. You’ve made the difference before … Ever wonder how the people at Newport Gliders come up with some of the features people have come to know and love? Well, beyond the obvious answer of the Newport Glider craftsmen sitting together and brainstorming for new ideas, every once in a while a customer sums it up in one phone call. Newport Glider Vice President Dave Laforce remembers one such suggestion that sparked a surge of orders.

“We had a customer in South Dakota,” Laforce says, “who loved his new swivel-base glider. But he didn’t like the metal base.”

A short time later, Laforce and the people at Newport Gliders responded with a wood base swivel option for their glider lines. And soon enough they realized how much people loved the idea. “Now it’s about a third of our sales,” Laforce notes.

A good thing then, and even better today Newport Gliders knew a good thing when they saw it, and in 1975, after manufacturing furniture parts for various distributors for 12 years, the company purchased one of its clients and started the process of building the original gliding rocking chair from start to finish.

“We sold only 10 chairs in the first year,” company Vice President Dave Laforce said. Dave, the son of one of the Newport Furniture Parts founders, smiles when he thinks of the original retail showroom in the rustic village of Newport, Vermont. The idea of a gliding rocker – a big step from what most considered a rocking chair – and the relatively small population of the area didn’t really provide an overwhelming market. So they made a regional push. At first, the reception was less than encouraging. Furniture stores were a bit hesitant when they first saw the chairs, Laforce says, but once they took their first glide … they were sold.

Since that time, Laforce and longtime Newport Furniture Parts member Larry Daigneault purchased the company and took the chairs nationwide. Beyond varying designs offered, the two spearheaded new options like a swivel base, reclining options, and matching ottomans for customers who want to kick up their heels and really relax in style and comfort.

Today, Newport Gliders continues its operations in Newport, Vermont and employs 120 craftsmen, upholsterers and customer service representatives. There are several models of the glider to choose from and if customers can't quite decide on over 50 fabric choices, Newport Gliders accepts customer fabrics and goes from there. What the future holds, Laforce said, is quite simply more options for their customers.

“The looks are getting better and better,” Laforce said. “And we keep brainstorming on features to add to the luxury.” Yet while they keep coming up with new ideas, Laforce has to admit, sometimes there’s nothing like the original. For instance, the chair visible in the company logo was the second model ever produced by the company, and as Laforce put it:

“It’s still in the top three. It sells like crazy.” Don’t settle on an imitation!