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Side By Side®Iron Door HardwareBY GREGORY LEFEVER
Doors—as much as utensils, roof pitches, decorative color, and window treatments—are emblematic of specific eras, which is why a door’s particular style and hardware are so important to restorers, archaeologists, architects, historians, home decorators, even movie-set designers. Whether you’re a museum conservator replicating a bygone building or a homeowner seeking a distinctive early ambiance, two factors must be considered: the style of door and the hardware—hinges, latches, pulls, and locks. Museum conservators limited to a specific period and traditional techniques have a clear choice. For the home decorator, the matter is more complicated. Even after the door’s hardware style is identified—say, a strap hinge with a face-pintle mounting for the front door—there’s still the question of production authenticity. Do you run over to Lowe’s to pick out something from the mass-produced samples? Or do you give a skilled blacksmith the specifications, wait a month while he crafts a beautiful, one of-a-kind, period hinge, and pay accordingly for his time? ltimately, it comes down to matters of personal preference, waiting time, and, inevitably, money. While door hardware has evolved, its basic function has remained the same. You need something to support the door and allow it to open and close: the hinge. You need something to grab for opening and closing: the handle or latch. You need something on an exterior door to secure it from unwanted intrusion: a lock. Each has changed considerably in America from the early 1600s through the 1900s. “When you look at the doors, there was a very distinct difference between the interior and the exterior doors in terms of hinges and latches,” said Plimoth Plantation resident blacksmith Mark Atchison. Although door evolved very slowly from the Middle Ages through about 1700, doors and their associated hardware began to change more quickly thereafter. Matching the right door hardware to a period home can be a challenge even for a museum curator. And finding the right reproduction hardware to assure historical integrity requires a careful consideration of both your needs and the products of the various hardware makers. Early American Life investigated the work of five modern makers of iron door hardware suitable for period homes. Each has his own specialty. Kevin P. Clancy
“I do it entirely the traditional way,” Clancy says. “To achieve the look and authenticity I’m after takes attention to detail in both the method of manufacture and the finished product. That’s the only way to produce pieces that truly capture the look and feel of the early originals.” Old Smithy Shop
Horsley’s hardware is patterned after pieces prevalent in the more sophisticated areas of America, dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Old Smithy specializes in handles and hinges. “I’m in what is known as the Connecticut style,” Horsley explained, “which is a finer, more delicate style, and my forte is colonial hardware. That’s what I do.” Iron Apple Forge
Beck approaches his blacksmithing with an artist’s eye. “My style is to have the things hammered out more smoothly than the more primitive old European blacksmiths the most. I like the long tapers and the curled leaves of their more refined work. I try to use the best of their techniques whenever I can,” he said. Kayne & Son
“People tend to consider blacksmithing to be something that was around only before the Industrial Revolution, but there are people today who still want the hand-forged pieces—something not just stamped out in a factory—where no two pieces are the same,” says David Kayne, who began learning the craft from his father at age five. Ball and Ball Hardware Reproductions
Ball and Ball was founded in 1932 by brothers William and George Ball and is now run by the third generation, William Ball Jr., grandson of the cofounder. The work is very much in the family blood. In seventeenth-century England, Ball ancestors were appointed armor makers to the crown, while succeeding generations of metalworkers included an earlier William Ball, a silversmith who opened his Philadelphia business in 1752. KEVIN P. CLANCY 2819 Old Liberty Road Eldersburg, MD 21784 410-795-4183
OLD SMITHY SHOP 193A Route 13 Brookline, MA 03033 603-672-4113
IRON APPLE FORGE PO Box 724 Buckingham, PA 18912 215-794-7351
KAYNE & SON CUSTOM HARDWARE 100 Daniel Ridge Road Candler, NC 28715 828-667-8868
BALL AND BALL HARDWARE REPRODUCTIONS 463 Lincoln Highway Exton, PA 19341 800-257-3711
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Doors are so commonplace we rarely give them a second thought. Yet they not only provide essential egress for shelter and commerce, they are also key indicators of period and place. 
If you match today’s working blacksmiths to time periods, you’ll put
purist Kevin Clancy solidly in the early period. The Eldersburg, Maryland, blacksmith has been at his coal-fueled forge with anvil and hammer—no modern tools whatsoever—for nearly two decades, producing some of America’s finest hand-wrought hardware for restored and replicated homes, as wellas for museums such as Mount Vernon and Jamestown in Virginia and St. Mary’s City in Maryland. 
Another source of quality colonial period hardware is Franklin Horsley at Old Smithy Shop in Brookline, New Hampshire. He, like Clancy, relies on traditional blacksmithing methods, though not exclusively. When it makes economic and artistic sense, Horsley uses a drill press, band saw, or grinder, but refrains from more serious deviations such as modern forges and power hammers.
Joseph Beck at Iron Apple Forge in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, is not a purist in either hardware styles or production methods, but over the course of three decades he has become one of Pennsylvania’s premier artist-blacksmiths. Beck produces a number of hinges, latches, knockers, and bolts in authentic colonial style. He uses his own designs or draws on traditional forms for kitchen, bathroom, patio, and garden items. His work is installed in museums, businesses, government buildings, and homes around the country.
Kayne & Son specializes in producing period door hardware—mostly hinges and thumb-latches—and fireplace tools. The family-operated company also combines traditional and modern production methods for increased output and a wide selection of hardware styles, enabling the business to evolve over the course of
forty years. Its founder, Steve Kayne, began learning blacksmithing when he was eight and started the business in his Long Island garage in 1965. The Kayne family business moved to Candler, North Carolina, in 1982 and now operates three forges in a 7,000-square-foot shop.
Ball and Ball Hardware Reproductions in Exton, Pennsylvania, produces handmade and what it calls “semihandmade” door hardware, which again relates to certain production methods that bear on an item’s price. The firm is noted for its broad selection of items—spanning the eighteenth century to the Victorian era—including period lighting, and hardware for furniture, clocks, fireplaces, and sashes and shutters.