Latino Locksets and Other Interesting Door Hardware

Sidewalk snapshots of South American door hardware

Even as a boy in Buenos Aires, I always noticed and loved the large, impressive doors that marked the entry to homes in my port city.

Since I first got hold of a camera, I have been taking pictures of doors obsessively. Even my wife has trained her eye to help me spot especially photo-worthy examples. Lately my focus has sharpened to spotting notable hardware. Hinges, locksets, knockers and deadbolts.

You will notice in the pictures that locksets tell you when someone is home. If locked from the outside, knocking won’t help, nobody’s there to answer the door. You will find a similar set of bolts and padlocks on the inside, but when folks are home, the doors remain open.

At night, when you button up, you do have a sense of utter security.

Typical doors may have three locks, and the bolts penetrate deep into the jambs requiring multiple turns of the key to set them completely.

And then there’s the large cross bolts with padlocks, just for added security.

— Fernando Pagés Ruiz is ProTradeCraft's Latin America Editor. He is currently building a business in Ecuador and a house in Mexico. Formerly, he was a builder in the Great Plains and Mountain States. He is author of Building an Affordable House and Affordable Remodel (Taunton Press).