Between Two Pines — Appendix 1
About the Door
Yes, there is a door, much like the one in the story.
First came the story, envisioned as a storytelling framework within which I could write a series of stories for my grandchildren and include them as characters.
Then again, perhaps the door came first. I had been aware of the concept of a door in the forest by way of a photo I saw of such a door on Buckle Island, in the Atlantic off the coast of Maine. The Buckle Island door gives way to a variety of eco-friendly artworks created by visitors to the otherwise uninhabited island.
As I outlined Chapter 1 of the story, I came to realize that beyond including my grandchildren in the stories, I could create adventures for us to enjoy. I could blur the line between story and reality such that the grandchildren and I could take part in the story.
Then came my epiphany. There had to be a door. The story was nice enough, but the magic I hoped to create could only exist in a world with an actual door in the forest.
I tried to describe my vision to my wife Lisa, and her first reaction was skepticism. She liked the idea of the story and how it would involve the grandchildren, but to her, the concept of an actual door seemed, at the least, overzealous.
Despite her reluctance to embrace the idea, I couldn’t shake it. There had to be a door. I envisioned everything to do with the door. Where would I put the door? What kind of door? How would the door be installed? Would the door magically appear and disappear in relationship to the story?
As the story developed, so too did the concept of the door. It would need to be a wide old wooden door with a skeleton key lock. It would need to be installed permanently in the forest — so it could open and close and lock reliably through the years. It would need to live near our family cabin in Northern Michigan, a place that has been in the family for 60 years and likely will remain in the family far beyond my years.
I researched where I could find such a door, leading me to a few nearby architectural salvage companies. I described the door I was looking for and asked if they might have one. The replies were no better than “probably.” One day I made an appointment to visit one of their warehouses, this being their method for presenting their offerings (none of them show their inventory online).
I met Linda in front of a decrepit warehouse, in a section of downtown Detroit lined with similarly decrepit buildings. She had me wait by a tall garage door while she went in through another door to unlock the garage door. As I waited, I noticed a splotch of spilled blue paint on the sidewalk in front of the door, a shape reminding me of a blue flamingo, or perhaps Gonzo from Sesame Street. It was such fabulous found art that I snapped a photo to share later on.
The garage door opened with a clatter and I stepped into the unlit warehouse. Faintly visible through the shadows, within the warehouse and along its walls, I saw hundreds of doors. Linda said that they had no electricity at the moment, but they were working on it. I told her what I was looking for, that I needed a door to install in the forest, as a prop for a story I was writing. She seemed amused and intrigued and said she thought we could find a suitable door.
The light from the garage door faded as we ventured deep into the building. Linda turned on the flashlight on her phone and guided me to a row of vintage doors, leaning one against the next. She had intimate knowledge of their inventory, both what they had available and the price for each door. Like flipping through albums at a record store, she worked through the stack of doors, offering details about them as she went, stopping once or twice to inspect a door with her flashlight.
Finding the first candidate, she had me hold the stack open while she hauled the door out, lifting it easily despite her small stature. It was a classic five-panel interior door, with a finish so dark that it was almost black. I could imagine it installed in the forest and looking like it had been there for years. As with most of the doors, it had no doorknob or lock, because most customers select hardware separately. She told me that I should be able to find hardware, but I worried about how and whether I could find hardware that would fit both the door and my vision.
Linda led me on a tour of the sprawling warehouse, pointing out a variety of intriguing doors, some that might work for me and most that would not. There must be intriguing histories and stories for these doors, but that was outside my mission for the day. I decided that architectural salvage must be a fascinating and rewarding profession.
After inspecting a half dozen candidate doors, Linda recalled an unusual door that had recently arrived at the warehouse. She led me to the back of the building, where light trickled in through filthy paneled windows high atop the walls. She peeled back a few doors from a stack and presented what became “the door.” There was no aura emanating from the door, nor did trumpets sound, nor angels sing. But I was drawn to it and the more I studied it, the more I knew it was the right door.
To start, it was a pine door, a rarity both in the world of doors and within the warehouse. Given that the door was to live “between two pines,” it seemed fitting to use a pine door. It was wider and shorter than a standard door, making it problematic for most applications, but perfect for mine (as height would not matter for my installation). It had a well-worn look and curiously, one side had vertical slats of knotty pine, but the other was a classic five-panel design. This oddity suggested the sort of magic I sought. And best of all, unlike most of the doors in the warehouse, this one included a vintage doorknob and skeleton key lock.
I wrote a check, and we carried the door out to the sidewalk. The door lay flat in the back of my SUV with mere inches to spare; I took this as another good omen. I inquired about a key for the lock and Linda told me that there are only a few patterns for skeleton keys and that a locksmith should be able to find one that would fit. She suggested I visit Fred’s Key Shop a few blocks away.
Fred’s has been a Detroit institution for almost 60 years, founded and still owned by three brothers. The lobby was full of customers waiting for various keys, locks and repairs. When it was my turn, Daniel showed no surprise at my request for a skeleton key for an old door that I had purchased. He asked if I had the lock and I said that the door was in my car outside. He brought a box of miscellaneous skeleton keys and tried them one at a time. Finding no winners, Daniel said if I left the lock, they could make a key for it. Rather than disassembling the door right there, I decided to find a locksmith closer to home.
In my garage, I removed the doorknob and lock assembly from the door and took it to nearby Steve’s Locksmith Shop. Steve had a sizable inventory of skeleton key blanks that he had gotten from a one-hundred-year-old locksmith shop when its owner retired. Most replacement skeleton keys are created from brand new blanks, which are made of cheap shiny silver or gold metal. Steve’s blanks were the same vintage as the door and they had the design and patina to match. He renovated the doorknob assembly, replacing springs and lubricating moving parts, and supplied a working key.
Now that I had the perfect door with a working skeleton key lock, I began to consider installation. For a time, I imagined that the door might appear and disappear based on the flow of the story. I envisioned a garden timber frame suspended between trees via ratchet straps. Obviously, I’m no construction expert, as this approach has many fatal flaws. I came to realize that the installation would need to be permanent, and that the structure would need to be quite sturdy to support proper door functioning. Soon after, I reluctantly concluded that such an installation was beyond my capabilities. I hired a local contractor to install the door for me.
I did my part, washing the door and applying water-seal to extend its life exposed to the elements. I selected a location near enough to the cabin for easy access, but obscured within a cluster of young white pines, so that the door would not stand out to passers-by. I found two red pines with similar girth standing about five feet apart, a bit wider than the door and its framing. It took a bit of work to clear the brush between the trees and to sink holes amongst the roots for the support timbers. But it took only a couple of hours for the contractor to square the door within its supports and install the structure between the pines. We filled in the holes with cement and I stained the timbers to better match the door. It was magnificent.
Let us not forget the accoutrements. I hung a ‘between two pines’ sign on the door, having found a great provider on Etsy to create it. As described in the story, I needed a bunch of skeleton keys that would NOT open the lock, and I was able to buy a couple of dozen vintage keys on eBay. We already had an ancient shed on the property and a key board inside the cabin (though not in an old basement). So I placed the keys and waited for the family to arrive.
I had shared the story with my family on grandson Ryan’s third birthday, and soon after we were all headed to the family cabin for the Labor Day weekend. I anticipated that each of them would at some point come upon the door and realize what I had created. My sister was the first to arrive, she who serves as muse and instigator for my writing. She did not notice the door on her way into the driveway. We greeted and grabbed beers and chatted and wandered around outside, but she did not notice the door. After an hour or so, I came to realize that I had hidden the door too well. I told her that “there was something she needed to know.” Her expression showed intrigue and perhaps a bit of fear. I led her down the driveway near the door, but still she did not see it. Only when I had her walk into the trees by the door did she finally glimpse it.
Despite the door being installed no more than 25 feet from the driveway, and closer than that to the playset, not one member of the family found it on their own. One by one, I let them know that “there was something they needed to know,” and I led them to the door. One by one they discovered the magic door in the forest and I enjoyed their smiles as they imagined what might be in store for the grandchildren.
