Sant Joan d’Alacant grew in the middle of the Huerta de Alicante, the irrigated farmland that fed the city for centuries. The town’s own tourism office lists its watchtowers, built between the late 15th and the 17th centuries against Barbary pirates, and the 19th-century villas and fincas where families from Alicante spent their summers, some of which became homes all year round. Lo de Bellón, La Concepció, Manzaneta, Villa Ramona, Capucho: names of houses that still mean something here.
Some of these houses are lived in, some are cared for by families, some are being restored. All of them have doors that are nothing like a modern front door.
What makes these doors different
- Thickness and weight. Solid timber, often several centimetres thick, hung on heavy hinges. They move with the seasons: tight after rain, loose in the dry heat of summer.
- The lock is often a lever lock, set into the door or fixed to its face in a box, opened by a long key with a bit at the end. No euro cylinder at all.
- Bolts and bars inside, for when the house is shut up.
- Repairs over the centuries: a newer lock fitted next to an older one, holes from previous fittings, wood that has been patched.
Looking after the lock
- Do not oil it heavily. Oil and dust make a paste that stiffens old levers. A little dry graphite in the keyhole is kinder.
- Do not force the key. If it will not turn, the door may be pulling on the bolt. Lift or push the door gently while turning.
- Keep the original key safe, and if it is the only one, think about how you would get in without it. Old keys cannot always be copied easily, and the lock itself may be hard to replace like for like.
When it will not open
An old lever lock is opened through its own keyhole with the right tools, without damage, and is left working. That is almost always the better answer than drilling or replacing it: a matching antique lock may not exist, and a modern lock in a 19th-century door can mean cutting the timber.
What makes these jobs slower is the door, not the lock. Swollen timber, a dropped hinge or an inner bolt that slid across by itself all need patience.
If you need more security
A finca shut for part of the year can be made safer without spoiling it: an additional modern lock fitted discreetly on the inside face, a reinforced keep, a bar for when nobody is there. It is planned work, discussed with you.
The newer houses round them have their own problems, from a 2000s cylinder that has never been changed to a street gate that has stopped latching.