Old Canaan Building Materials

The hardware on the front door of a traditional New England house is one of the most handled and most scrutinized details on the building. It is touched every day. It is seen at close range. It is one of the few exterior details that people actually hold. Bronze gets this right. It has weight. It has warmth. It develops a patina over decades that looks like what it is — a material that has been used and touched and lived with.

Silicon bronze and architectural bronze are warm gold-brown when new, darkening to a deep chocolate-brown or near-black in heavy-use areas over years of handling. The transition from bright to dark is gradual and uneven — the high points of a knob or handle stay brighter where hands touch them, the recesses darken first. This variation is not a defect. It is the material recording its own use.

Architectural bronze hardware for exterior use is either silicon bronze (an alloy of copper and silicon, highly corrosion-resistant) or architectural bronze (copper with zinc and small amounts of lead). For exterior applications in a salt-air or coastal environment, silicon bronze is preferred. Hardware is available in several standard finishes: oil-rubbed bronze, natural bronze, or statuary bronze. For traditional New England work, natural or oil-rubbed bronze is correct.

Bronze exterior hardware requires essentially no maintenance if left to weather naturally. The patina that develops is protective and stable. If a specific finish is required to be maintained, it must be reapplied as it wears. For most traditional applications, natural weathering is the correct approach.

Polished brass tarnishes and requires maintenance to stay bright. Nickel is too cold for traditional buildings. Stainless steel reads as contemporary. Bronze is the historically correct hardware metal for traditional American residential buildings and it weathers as a traditional material should — with use, not against it.

From architectural hardware dealers and through kitchen and bath showrooms that carry traditional lines. Reputable manufacturers include Baldwin, Emtek, and Rocky Mountain Hardware (which produces solid silicon bronze castings). For restoration work, period hardware from architectural salvage dealers is often the best source.