My Weirdest Find Yet
August 9, 2025
Source: Worth Point
I was meandering around The Plantation House by Gaylord’s in Hawaii, convincing myself I was just looking. Then I saw it – a vintage gossip bench.
A gossip bench is a wooden chair with a built-in side table. Sometimes there was a lower shelf. The phone sat on the table, the phone book on the shelf, and you the seat, with one spot for every call.
No pacing around the kitchen. No wandering off into the backyard mid-conversation. You sat, talked and twisted the cord of the phone until it knotted, and later had to untwist it.
The Original Social Media Feed
There is a reason they call it a gossip bench. In the ’50s and ’60s, this is how news traveled. Engagements, new children, missing tomato plants. My mom would tell her best friend about school dances from her family’s gossip bench, pretending not to know her dad listening from the other room. The phone cord only stretched so far, and privacy was in short supply.
The One I Saw
The one I looked at in Hawaii was made of dark wood, it had curved legs, an upholstered seat, and a padded arm. The fabric printed in what looked like vintage tapestry. I had no apparent need for it, but I took it home anyway. It makes a home feel like it creates stories.
Why They Went Away
The gossip bench started to fade in the late ’80s with cordless phones and disappeared with cell phones. A gossip bench was not just a piece of furniture. It was a ritual. Answer the phone. Sit. Talk.
Why I Keep Mine
Mine now rests in a corner of my living room, and does not hold a phone. Sometimes I put books on it. Sometimes it just sits there. Every time I walk past it I think about the conversations it has overhead.
It then reminds me of a slower time, when a call had a beginning and an end, and you were there for them.
If you find a vintage gossip bench at a thrift store or estate sale – buy it. Not for the phone, but for the history it harkens back to. It is a better conversation starter than anything on Tik Tok.