The Maplewood French

The Maplewood French is what happens when a 1924 Tudor revival builder takes French doors seriously. Twelve true divided lites per leaf, original putty on every pane, cremone bolt instead of the modern surface bolts. We love the astragal — that's the molding strip that covers the gap where the two leaves close. Modern French doors use an applied astragal that you can pry off. This pair has integral astragals, milled from the same mahogany as the stiles. They will never separate from the door.

French doors as a category are abused by builders. The default modern French door is a pair of solid panels with a fake muntin grid pressed between two sheets of plate glass. The Maplewood pair shows what the type can be when it is built honestly.

Twelve panes per leaf, twenty-four total. Each pane is restoration glass — not original, but matched cylinder-blown glass with the slight waviness that gives old windows their characteristic light. The putty is original, mineral oil-based, still elastic.

The cremone bolt is the closing mechanism. A single brass lever, when rotated, throws bolts into both the head jamb and the sill. The lever has a knob worn smooth on its upper face by approximately 102 years of hands. The bolts themselves are square stock, slipped through brass keepers, with no possibility of forced entry that the door frame itself cannot resist.

The weather-stripping along the exterior edge is bronze spring-stripping, installed in 1948. The interior surface still shows the original 1924 lacquer, untouched, dark with age into a deep amber. We have not refinished it and will not.