A Short History of Murphy Beds

 

Murphy Beds are named after William Lawrence Murphy (1876–1959), who was the first to apply for a patent on the system around 1900.

 

He lived in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and wanted to be able to invite friends over – and especially a opera singer. But as the gentleman he was, he wouldn’t invite a woman into his bedroom, and since he only had one room, the bed took most of the space of the room.

So in order to be able to turn his room into a living room, he had a blacksmith help him mount a mechanism, that would make it possible to flip the bed into a closet. This way he was able to hide the bed, and turn the bedroom into a living room.

 

The trick worked – William L. Murphy later married to the girl