The Case of the Mysterious Door
I have called in Scotland Yard. For, something is amiss at the Cross House.
Today, I realized that the single library door leading to the south hall did not have the proper doorknob. This, after I just posted that I no longer needed any more door hardware!
In 2014, I relocated the door to the far left of the east wall. It had been in the middle. Neither location was original. (Note: The room was already gutted when I purchased the house.) Originally, the door had been on the north wall, kinda tucked under the stair. Or at least…
…that is what the original drawing shows. But, as the stair was not constructed exactly as such, perhaps the library door wasn’t in that location either. In any event…
…the door looks innocuous enough. Do not be fooled though! For, embodied in the door is a great mystery!
Today, I realized that the doorknob was not original. Well, this just won’t do! However, I also noticed, for the first time…
…an arched imprint on the wood.
And another arched imprint on the other side. I instantly knew what these imprints represented.
The hardware in all the service areas of the house have this hardware. Which can only mean that…
…this seemingly innocuous door could NOT be the original library door. It clearly was, in 1894, a door in a service area of the house.
And see the horizontal reeded detail?
This details aligns with the same detail on the trim topping the first-floor Lincrusta. ONLY the first-floor doors have the reeded detail.
In short:
- The library door was not originally the door to the library.
- The door was originally a part of the service area.
- The door could only be from the first floor.
But…where? I am only missing a single door on the first floor, the original door to the basement. The current library door is too small for this opening though.
So, where was the door in 1894? Where? I am not missing any first-floor doors other than the basement door.
Because I do not have the original plan of the first floor, I cannot be certain of how things were originally. Yet, there is no indication that much has changed save a hall being made through what had been the dumbwaiter and adjacent closet (I reversed this alteration in 2014). And the closet still retains its original door.
The current library door came from somewhere in the service area. But where?
I await Scotland Yard!
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Are there any missing on non-original doors in the carriage house?
Hi, Trace!
The entire interior of the carriage house is not original. It was a barn originally.
And any doors it had would not have been fancy like the library door.
Could there have been a second door into a room that has since been covered over? Since it has to match the hall molding, yet has a servant doorknob, maybe a servant entrance into one of the public rooms?
There’s no location for such a door, Biki.
Didn’t you once mention the area under the main stair was modified for a stair to the basement that wasn’t there originally? Could it be from there with a door opening toward the back hall? Is the hardware in the back hall or the service type?
Yes, Michael, circa-1950 a new stair to the basement was created under the main stair. So, if the library door had been actually installed where shown in the 1894 drawing, it had to be moved because of the new stair.
But the door would not have had service hardware.
Also, the back hall (or south hall) was not a service area. The hall was the main access for the family.
Has the main floor bath always been full as it is now? When you eliminated the passage through the butler’s pantry that you had previously added between the kitchen and south hall, I too thought it was odd that the only way to get from the kitchen to the rest of the main floor was through the formal dining room. Is it possible that the original service connection was taken to enlarge the bathroom and then replaced by creating the hall that eliminated the laundry chute and dumb waiter?
Michael, in 1894 is was typical for a kitchen to be quite separate from the main living spaces. In a house the size of the Cross House, an upstairs/downstairs spatial configuration would have been the norm.
Also, the main floor bath appears to be its original size.
I very much understand the separation, but from a functional standpoint, it seems that servants would need a way to access the front rooms while the family was dining. If anything were served in the parlor before dinner, how would they clean or clear glasses? Doesn’t seem that they would cart them up the front stairs and then down the back to get to the kitchen. Was it typical to have a full bath facing front of house on the main floor at this time? Who would bathe there? Sorry for all the questions. It’s just that the practicality of having a full bath/mud room there for the family seemed out of sync with some of the more formal but less practical design decisions.
Michael, the first-floor bath was originally a half-bath. I am converting it back to a half-bath.
Thanks. That makes more sense. I was going to ask if you thought putting a back door in the bath allowing access from the kitchen, and a way to pass through if desired, would put you back at risk of “preservation hell”, but when I consulted your future kitchen plan, it appears the large size of the dumb waiter shaft would preclude this option anyway. I had based my theory on the sketch from the “preservation hell” posts and the non-original first floor plan. Now also knowing that the second library door was not originally right across the hall, this makes less sense.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Perhaps this is a conundrum that will resolve itself as you continue on with the rehab. Heck, maybe the neighbors had an extra door they put out for trash one day. Habitat for Humanity wasn’t around then to collect odd parts. You’ll figure it out, I have faith in you.
Do the other doors in the service area have that same reeded detail?
Yes, they do, Kerri.
All the first-floor doors have the reeded detail.
Hey Ross!
If the door was originally in the kitchen, it seems like there are only a couple of possibilities – a door for the dumbwaiter or possibly for the “breakfast room.” The only other option I can think of is that the door was originally in the basement dividing up two sections of the basement.
Doesn’t it seem like there probably wasn’t a door leading into the library originally? Anyway, that’s my theory!
I agree, Kerri, that the door might have been to the dumbwaiter. It’s the only place I can think it could have come from. Except, I have never seen a regular door used in front of a dumbwaiter. Normally, it’s like a half-door up on the wall a bit, a larger version of the small door to the second-floor laundry chute.
It was not likely a door to the servant’s hall. That opening is arched, plastered, and retains its original wainscoting and trim. Moreover, even if the opening had been altered, the door is too short. A door to the opening would have certainly matched the height of the other doors in the room.
Had the door come from the basement, it would have been simpler and without the reed detail, just like the single extant basement door.
I think once you start renovating more on the interior this will become clear.
How much too small is it for the basement door frame? Is the difference small enough it could have been cut down and properly refinished early on? Or could the basement door frame have been enlarged at some point to make access easier?
Ragnar, the basement door frame appears to be original and matches, exactly, the adjacent door frames to the second-floor entry, and to the main pantry. They are contiguous.
The second-floor entry door is original and in situ. The pantry and basement entry doors were missing, but the latter was returned to the house in 2018. However, I do not need a door to the pantry, so I installed it in the basement entry. It fits perfectly.
The library door has not been cut down. It is shorter and narrower than the basement door.
Is it possibly a door from the back stairs on the first floor? Or possibly an internal door in the kitchen such as to the pantry or similar? Or alternatively a door from one of the demolished basement rooms such as a laundry?
Given the hardware on both sides of the door was the same it had to be in a space where only the servants would see both sides.
It also suggests you are missing a door, as where did the hardware on it come from?
I was wondering this, too. Is the current library door hardware from the missing second floor bathroom door? (These mystery posts are my favorite!)
Perhaps the hardware came from the door that Ross recently posted about. The true missing hardware is a service set.
The current hardware on the door, Matt, is smaller than most of the other backplates in the house. The only doors in the house with the same height backplate are the second-floor closets. And two closets were removed in 1929, meaning that two doors would have become redundant and their hardware. Were the doors then stored in the basement, and then later some of the hardware removed and installed on the library door?
Matt, you wrote: “Given the hardware on both sides of the door was the same it had to be in a space where only the servants would see both sides.”
Agreed.
The door though cannot be from the backstairs or main pantry because it is not wide or tall enough (and it has not been cut down). It is not likely from the basement as such a door would have been very plain and not custom-made as all the reeded doors appear to be.
The door in the blueprint drawing is not the same type door as the door with the odd hardware. 5 panel vs. 6 panel.
Sherry, it is common that how things were drawn is not how things were built.
The door matches all the first-floor doors.
Another curious aspect of the door is its height. It’s short (and has not been cut down). And the only other short first-floor door is to the telephone closet, and that is due to the transom window above (the only such window in the house).
As such, the height of the door indicates that it was likely a closet door.
Is it possible that the door came from a service area on the second or third floor? Maybe a now-demolished closet or something in that area? I know the horizontal reeded detail suggests otherwise, but were all service doors the same, regardless of the floor on which they were installed?
Hi, Brian.
Each floor of the house has a different door.
FIRST-FLOOR: All the doors have a reed detail, be they in a service area or main room.
SECOND FLOOR: These match the first-floor doors but without the reed detail.
THIRD-FLOOR: I have, I think, two extant doors. These are thin and plain and would have been the last-expensive doors from a lumberyard.
Fascinating! I look forward eagerly to a future post where you SQUEE figure it out! Scotland Yard has NOTHING on you for attention to detail and relentless pursuit of the truth.
POSSIBLE SCENARIO?
1. A resident wanted to put furniture in the original door’s location, Removing and storing the original library door, (and its trim???), in the basement.
2. A service door was likewise removed and stored on top of or in front of the library door in the basement.
3. Later owner, not necessarily knowing or caring where it was originally, wanted a door from the library to the hall. A carpenter was asked to install a door from the basement in an entirely new location, (you closed that opening).
4. Realizing that the wrong hardware was on the door that had been hung, just switched the hardware from the other stored door.
There may be signs on one of the service area doors that it originally had been a door in the family area.
I love mistery! Let me suggest a possible location for the door: the opening between the kitchen and the servant’s hall. If I remeber properly there was an arch between the two spaces, what if originally there had been a door there? It is the only place I can think of where a door connecting two service rooms might have existed. If this hypothesis is correct there might be some material evidence in that opening. At all events, as Sherlock Holmes said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
This just makes my head hurt. Taking off my thinking cap now.
Did I read that there was an annex to one of the bedrooms. A friend of mine owns a historical home and off each room is a side room the size of a small walk in closet. Servants would sleep in these tiny rooms to tend to the sick or care for a child or new baby. Could there have been a door to your big room?
Or maybe the aliens brought this door to the Cross House as a way to mess with your head?
Check all of the doors currently having the service hardware. Does one of them have a ghost of the fancy hardware? Was it reinstalled in the wrong opening?