Alluminio Elivia Horizontal Wood Grain 2VS - Bleached Oak - Swing

The two vertical panels (2VS) in this interior door model are like the two Pillars of Hercules, celebrated in numerous Greek and Roman tales as a symbol of strength. In ancient mythology, the Strait of Gibraltar – linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean – was created by Zeus’s son when he encountered a mountain he wished neither to climb over nor circumvent. Some versions have him asking the locals whether they had any particular use for the mountain before smashing through it. Some of the locals may or may not have asked for compensation. Other versions have Hercules widen a pre-existing straight, while in others he proceeds to narrow it instead. Be that as it may, the two promontories on either side of the waterway have borne his name ever since.

The powerful image inspired numerous designs – the long list includes (to give you an idea of the symbol’s versatility) the coat of arms of Spain, and to this day you can observe the two columns, originally the impressa of Charles I, on the wall of Seville’s city hall.

Horizontal denotes the direction of the wood grain – or its longitudinal orientation, to use a professional term: no more and no less. This is important, as it will create additional visual space for you, making the room appear wider. A vertically oriented wood grain would give additional visual height to your ceiling – if that’s the effect you prefer, you might want to look into the appropriate interior door model type in this collection.

Visual architectural devices – or tricks, to use a layman’s term – have been around for thousands of years, literally. The Greeks called them “optical correction,” somewhat humorously, one would think. Next time you visit Greece, you might as well take a closer look – at the temple, the theatre, and the palace, or what’s left of them, anyway – and you’ll be delighted to discover that the trick is as ubiquitous as it is effective. You might want to go straight to the source and look at the Parthenon first. It’s amazing: no column is as wide at the top as it is at the bottom; most of the columns are tilted inward; the bottom of the facade slopes down from the middle on both sides. Here’s why: if you position yourself at, say, a hundred yards from the entrance, everything in that building will suddenly come off as perfectly level, even, and symmetrical. Pretty neat, eh?

Of course this interior door comes with all the usual wonderful Almese features, such as the state-of-the-art hardware (including the Italian-made 3D-adjustable self-lubricating concealed hinges, soundless magnetic lock, and automatic sweep), excellent sound-proofing and thermal insulation qualities, warp resistance, and so forth. As for the finish (pick your color!), it is applied using a process known colloquially as “stretching.” It works on molecular level (yes!): rather than laid on, the finish is fused with the door’s surface. This makes the resulting product – this interior door – scratch-resistant and fade-proof. The technology was made available only recently – through a series of technological breakthroughs.

This combination of color and wood grain is instantly familiar to anyone who has lived, or visited, New York for any meaningful period of time. Every now and then one ends up walking or driving through a neighborhood whose streets are lined with row houses known locally as brownstones (with many interior doors inside).

In the original sense, brownstone is a type of sandstone that was once a vastly popular building material, especially in England and the United States. In most American and British cities, they’re just townhouses clad in this material.

Not in New York, though.

Gotham’s brownstones are strings of houses three, four, or five stories high, oftentimes taking up the entire block, with high porches (known locally as “stoops”), bay windows, oriel spaces, high ceilings, and occasionally creaky stairs. The vast majority of these quaint structures were erected at the turn of the Nineteenth Century. One will find them in considerable quantities in places such as East Harlem; the Upper East Side; Greenwich Village; Chelsea; as well as in certain older sections of Brooklyn, such as Midwood, Sheepshead Bay, Columbia Heights, and so forth.

The Upper West Side – and its Riverside portion especially – has its own, very special, high-end type of brownstone, with Ionic columns, ornate porticos, elaborate double porches, etc. Some of them feature intricately designed façades, pediments, arched windows, picturesque entablature with neat-looking dentils on the frieze, and no elevator. The façades are often painted, the colors varying wildly sometimes, yet more often than not the color of choice seems to be the one which our Bleached Oak finish resembles closely. (Some of those well-preserved antique interior doors are quite something, too).

Many such houses were originally intended for upper-middle-class families, especially in Brooklyn. Here, lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent, with a sprinkling of English folks, found the area’s amenities and housing schemes were perfectly suited to their tastes. Bedford-Stuyvesant, specifically, used to consist almost entirely of brownstones and was referred to by an observant contemporary as “a town of homes and churches.” (He forgot to mention the interior doors, but, hey, he was a poet, and poets are often absentminded).

Wait a minute, you might say at this point. What are we doing, discussing age-old middle-class housing arrangements? What does it have to do with interior doors?

Ah, yes: the interior doors. Hmm.

Listen. Famous landmarks, the ones that one finds depicted on calendars and postcards and mentioned in brochures and tourist guides, are important in that they make major cities instantly recognizable. They are the face of a metropolis, its business card, its introductory statement. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Central Park: those are as indispensable to New York as Notre Dame and the Pont Neuf are to Paris, or St. Peter’s Basilica and the Piazza Venezia to Rome, or the Westminster Abbey to London, or the Winter Palace and the draw bridges to St. Petersburg. Yes, absolutely. Indubitably.

But it is always the quaint side street, the rows of residential dwellings, the café on the corner, the baker’s, greengrocer’s and butcher’s shops, the local temple, areas where the locals actually live (merrily, one would hope) and socialize – that constitute the heart of a city, any city. Just like your interior doors are, in a sense, the heart of your decor.

The brownstone, whose original color so closely resembled this interior door finish, are most certainly the heart of this city, our city.

Welcome to New York.