Cody Scores Yale & Towne Hardware!
All the door hardware in the Cross House is by Yale and Towne.
And it is all…F A B U L O U S !
It it all mostly…squee!!!!!!!!…in situ. Praise the Lord! Several missing door sets have now been acquired, and all that is still missing are 18 window pulls.
A few weeks ago Cody contacted me about something amazing.
He had found an exterior door plate from Yale & Towne’s Austerlitz pattern. Yes, this seems less than impressive. Seems being the operative word.
While my interior door sets are from this pattern, my exterior sets are from Yale & Towne’s Kelp pattern.
So, I had no need of this for plate. Still…it is incredibly rare. It also appeared incredibly fabulous, the many coats of paint notwithstanding. Surely, even though I had no place for it, I just had had had to have it, right?
Right?
Right!
OMG! It is just too gorgeous!
While the lock is gone, this is easily found. (Delicious Note: The south, west, and north entry doors of the Cross House retain…drum roll, please…their original locks!!!!!!!!)
Too. Friggin’. Gorgeous!
The exterior door plate matches two of my interior pulls (shown upside-down here; since righted).
So, while I have no place for this door plate, I am thrilled to have it.
And, once again, Cody scores! Thanks, Cody!
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Maybe it could find a home on the front door of the Carriage House?
Adam is right. The Carriage House is shouting “make me pretty too”
Also when poor neglected house hardware needs rescuing, you can add that to your lighting store.
It’s Art Nouveau. You can buy replicas of this from Embry for about $400. I was actually looking at buying the replica for my house last year and decided I didn’t like the curved handle so much.
I am an expert of late restoring old hardware… Wondering what your method of paint removal and finishing is. Can you explain? Thanks Ross.
Simply gorgeous and elegant! 🙂
That handle is so pretty I’d just mount it on a piece of wood and use it for shelf art.
You may need it in the future. For some added door somewhere.
What kind of hardware is on the coach house?
I wonder why the front door has the kelp hardware rather than the austerlitz?
Maybe, the austerlitz handle was out of stock when the order was placed?
It was extremely common practice for interior and exterior hardware patterns to differ in large homes of this period. They had quite a few more options for decorative hardware back then than we currently do now, so it was just one more way to “flex” the large budget that they had to spend on frivolous things like door hardware. Often times hardware suites would differ from floor to floor or even room to room to suit a varying theme or function of the space.
There was no obsessive need for the hardware to match on every door and in every room in a house like is the standard today.
Hi, Jordan!
I suspect the change in hardware was deliberate by the architect, Charles Squires. The Kelp pattern is more, ahh, monumental than the Austerlitz pattern, and well suits the exterior doors.
I’m curious what would possess someone to slop paint all over a beautifully detailed handle like that.
John, some time ago I learned that humans are very strange.