Keith Urban Chair Is Hand-ed Back to Grateful Fan!

A large fiberglass, hand-shaped chair, decorated with images of Keith Urban as part of an urban art program in Wisconsin, has been returned to its rightful owner.

Denise Mackey-Natz, owner of the Urban Style salon in Eau Claire, received a call on May 9 from a college student who said he had the chair and offered to return it. The young man told Denise he didn't unbolt the chair from the display at the front of her shop but took it when he found it laying on its side on a sidewalk. All Denise knows of the mystery is that the chair she had bought for $2,500 as part of the "Hands Across Eau Claire" campaign to benefit charity, was gone when she arrived at her salon on April 25.

"He said, 'I'm sorry, I have your chair,'" Denise, a long-time Keith Urban fan, tells the Boot. "He said, 'I didn't know that it would have the effect it did.'"

The man told Denise that he thought the chair had been discarded. When a friend alerted him to news reports about it, he called Denise and then drove from Milwaukee to Eau Claire to return it. The chair is scratched and needs some other repairs, but is basically in good shape, she says.

Prior to the young man's call, Keith had heard the chair was missing and called Denise to offer his sympathies and a reward -- four tickets and four VIP passes to any show on his Get Closer World Tour -- for information leading to its return. Keith also upgraded the tickets Denise had bought for his show.

"That was really a special thing," says Denise of Keith's call and offer. "I have clients who don't listen to country music and now they think Keith is wonderful. They can't believe what he did."

Denise said the man turned down the $200 reward she had offered for the chair's return, telling her to use the money to have the chair fixed and displayed. She alerted Keith's representatives to the return and they said at press time they were reaching out to the man.

"I'm just grateful the chair wasn't in the river or destroyed," she says, noting no charges were filed. "I am still a bit sick about it, but the story really does have a wonderful ending."

Keith's Get Closer World Tour begins June 16 in Biloxi, Miss. For a complete list of his upcoming concerts, check here.