panel door · 1769
The Santa Fe Portal
Santa Fe, New Mexico (Spanish colonial residence)
photograph forthcoming
The Santa Fe Portal is the second-oldest door in the Collection and the oldest in continental North America — 1769, twenty years before the U.S. Constitution. It is a Spanish colonial portal, two pieces of vertical ponderosa pine joined with hand-forged iron strap hinges and studded with forty-seven clavos. The clavos are decorative iron nails, hand-forged, individually unique. We have counted them and we have measured them. We love them.
Materials
- Ponderosa pine
- Hand-forged iron strap hinges
- Wrought-iron clavos
Notable features
- Built before American statehood; predates the United States
- Studded with 47 hand-forged iron clavos (decorative nails)
- Original adze marks visible on the lower rail
- Two-piece construction with sliding wooden bolt
Rate this door
The Society's house rating: 10/10