They Would Have Been Off Their Rockers to Turn This Down

They don’t hand out Oscars for best supporting chairs.

But that won’t stop Duane Collie, owner of the Keeping Room in Alexandria, Va., from bragging about the handmade 18th century reproductions featured in “The Patriot.”

The Columbia Pictures movie opens with Mel Gibson testing a bow-back American Windsor rocker he’s built. When it collapses under the weight of his fab physique, he smashes it and hurls the parts against a barn wall where other failed rockers rest in pieces.

“I came back from lunch one day last summer and found that someone from Hollywood wanted to buy chairs for a movie,” said Collie, whose shop specializes in antique copies, some of which grace such historic sites as Mt. Vernon. “They somehow located us, a little mom-and-pop operation. We didn’t have enough in stock. But my Windsor chair maker in New Hampshire almost didn’t do it. He did not want to see his chairs destroyed. He had to think about it for four days.”

The craftsman, Douglas R. Dimes, relented when his wife asked him point-blank, “Are you nuts?’ ” says his son, Douglas P. Dimes, marketing manager of D.R. Dimes & Co. in Northwood, N.H.

The props people bought the company’s furniture from several dealers around the country “because I didn’t have them and neither did the Keeping Room,” said the younger Dimes. “They asked me to be a technical advisor, but I didn’t want to go down to South Carolina and have somebody tell me I was in the way. I was happy they used the furniture. It was cool and they were neat people.”

Collie said he sold Columbia nearly two dozen pieces for around $20,000. “Eleven unfinished rockers, all with parts that would come apart, and one completely finished rocker for the end of the movie. We also did a youth chair, a writing armchair, a hanging corner cupboard, three accessory side tables, and another four or five Windsors as props.”

The bow-back rocker retails for about $650, and neither man would give the film folks a price break.

“Like Mel Gibson is going to come up here for dinner if he gets a discount,” said Dimes.

Sniffed Collie: “Mel Gibson is getting 24 million bucks for the movie. I can get $650 for my chairs.”