Every door we build at DeMejico starts with one decision: solid knotty alder wood, hand-selected from timber that has enough density and grain character to hold a carving for decades. There are no veneers here, no engineered cores wrapped in thin wood face. What you see on the surface goes all the way through.
We have been building Spanish and Mexican doors in Valencia, California for over 33 years. In that time, we’ve developed a catalog that covers every opening in a home: grand double entry doors, single exterior doors with hand-forged iron hardware, carved interior doors for hallways and bedrooms, and accent doors for closets, pantries, and passageways. This guide walks through each category so you understand what separates one type from another and which one belongs in your home.
How Every DeMejico Door Is Built
Every door in our catalog is built from solid knotty alder. We chose alder because it carves cleanly, holds detail without splintering, takes stain evenly, and has the structural integrity to hang plumb and stay that way through temperature and humidity changes. It’s the same wood used for doors in Spanish Colonial construction for centuries.
The carving is done by hand. Not CNC-routed and then touched up, but shaped by a craftsman using hand tools, cutting raised panels, beveled edges, and decorative insets directly into the wood. The difference is visible up close. Machine-routed panels have a uniformity that looks manufactured. Hand-carved panels have slight variations in depth and line that make each door its own piece.
Hardware is forged in our workshop, not purchased from a supplier. Strap hinges, clavos, speakeasy grilles, door knockers, and pull handles are shaped by hand from raw iron using techniques that have not changed since the Colonial period. The iron is left in a natural matte finish that deepens with age. It does not rust in normal conditions. It patinas.
Every door we build can be customized: different dimensions, different stain, different hardware, different panel configurations. Most of what you see in this catalog has already been built in a custom version for someone. If you see a style you like but need different proportions, we can build it.
Single Exterior Doors
A single exterior door is the most common entry configuration in residential homes. It fits standard openings, works with most architectural styles, and gives the entry a grounded, solid presence without visual complexity.
Our single exterior doors range from clean multi-panel designs to heavily carved statement pieces. The Puerta Montesario, one of our most recognized styles, features deep Spanish panel work, hand-forged iron clavos across the face, and an arched top that suits Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean, and hacienda-style architecture. The Puerta Santos takes a more ranch-style approach: simpler panel configuration, square top, the same solid alder and hand-forged hardware but with a cleaner silhouette.
For contemporary homes that want Spanish craft without full Colonial ornamentation, the Puerta Santa Clara is worth looking at. It has a contemporary arched top, smooth panel surfaces, and minimal surface detail. The craftsmanship is the same. The visual weight is quieter.
Standard width for single exterior doors runs 36 inches. We build custom widths for openings that don’t conform. Call us before assuming your opening requires a double.
Double Exterior Doors
Double entry doors say something. They’re architectural. They tell anyone approaching the house that what’s inside was built with intention. For homes with wide entry openings, for homes with formal foyers, for anyone who wants the entry to be the first statement the house makes, double doors are the right choice.
Our double door sets are built as matched pairs from the same piece of alder, so the grain, stain, and color are continuous across both leaves. The hardware is built to match: paired iron pulls, a center astragal with hand-forged iron detail, and strap hinges scaled to the door height.
The Double Puerta Hacienda is one of our signature pieces: a large arched top with raised panel detailing, glass insets on the upper panels and solid wood on the lower, and hand-forged iron strap hardware across both doors. It works in Spanish Revival homes, hacienda properties, and Mediterranean-style custom builds. The Double Puerta Cristobal takes a different approach, with a square top and arched inner paneling, finished with a wire-brush distress that brings out the alder grain without making the door look artificially aged.
Standard double door openings run 72 inches wide and 96 inches tall. We build wider and taller. We also build double doors with sidelights if the architectural opening includes flanking glass panels.
Interior Doors
Interior doors carry the same construction standards as our exterior pieces. Solid knotty alder, hand-carved panels, hand-forged iron hardware. The difference is weight: interior doors are typically lighter than exterior because weather resistance requirements are lower, and the door does not need to seal against the outside environment.
But lighter does not mean less substantial. A DeMejico interior door still weighs significantly more than a hollow-core door from a building supply warehouse. When you close it, you feel it. The sound it makes when it shuts is different. These are not things you notice until you install a real wood door and then remember what hollow-core felt like.
The Puerta Kamila is our most versatile interior door. Square top, multi-panel design, available as a single or double configuration. It works in hallways, primary bedroom entries, home office openings, and anywhere you want the door to contribute to the room rather than disappear. The Monastery Door is simpler: clean lines, minimal surface detail, built for spaces where the architecture is already doing a lot and the door should complement without competing.
We also build interior doors with glass insets for spaces where light transmission matters. A kitchen-to-dining passage, a home library, a study. The glass can be clear, seeded, or textured depending on how much visual privacy the space requires.
Accent and Closet Doors
Closets, pantries, wet bars, wine rooms, and passageways are often where people make the biggest upgrade in their second or third round of home improvement. They’ve already addressed the obvious rooms. Then they walk past the hollow-core bifold closet door one too many times and decide it has to go.
We build accent doors for any opening that needs a handcrafted wood door but does not require exterior weatherproofing. Our Closet Puerta Hoja was originally created for a residential closet, built as a carved double door set with proportions scaled to a smaller opening. It became one of our most referenced custom builds because the idea translates to so many spaces: master closets, pantry entries, cellar doors, built-in bar cabinets.
Accent doors can also include decorative elements that would be out of place on an exterior door: painted details, copper hardware, inset tile surrounds (designed by us to work with the door dimensions). These are commission pieces, built one at a time for a specific space.
If you have an opening that does not fit any standard configuration, call us. We build to your dimensions.
Choosing the Right Door for Your Home
The most common question we hear is: single or double? The honest answer is that it depends on your opening width, your ceiling height at the entry, and the scale of the house’s exterior. A 3,000-square-foot home with a 10-foot entry ceiling looks right with a double door. A 1,500-square-foot craftsman bungalow often looks better with a substantial single door and the right hardware. Scale matters more than preference.
The second question is always about stain. We offer a range of stain options from light natural alder tones to dark espresso. The stain does not hide the grain. It works with it. We can show you samples in person at our Valencia showroom, where every finish option is represented on actual door sections.
Third question: hardware. Hand-forged iron is standard on every door we build. The style of the hardware, whether you choose strap hinges with exposed hand-pounded rivets or cleaner bar hinges, whether you add clavos across the face panels or keep the surface clear, these are choices you make during the order process. We can walk you through all of it.
One thing we can say without qualification: a solid wood door from a craftsman shop will outlast any composite, fiberglass, or production-line wood door by several decades. With proper seasonal maintenance, which we cover in our warranty documentation, a DeMejico door will be on the house when the house changes hands. That is not a claim most door manufacturers can make.
