reet.

But the characteristic type of pedimental door trim in Philadelphia
takes a different form. About the middle of the eighteenth century the
plain horizontal transom above outside doors was generally replaced by
the more graceful semicircular fanlight, the glass area of which was
divided by sash bars or leaded lines into numerous radiating patterns of
more or less grace and beauty. By omitting the entablature of the common
horizontal doorhead and breaking the base of the pediment, the round
arch of the fanlight was made to fit very nicely within the sloping
sides of the pediment, the keystone of the arched casing occupying the
upper angle beneath the peak of the gable. Pilasters or engaged columns
support the pediment, their upper molded portion above the necking being
carried across the horizontal lintel of the door frame. From the
capitals up to the short cornice returns, replacing the usual base of
the pediment, the spirit of the entablature is retained by pilaster
projections molded after the manner of cornice, frieze and architrave.

Excellent doorways such as this with fluted pilaster casings, single
doors with six molded and raised panels of familiar arrangement and
paneled jambs and soffit to correspond are to be seen at Number 5011
Germantown Avenue, Germantown, and Number 247 Pine Street. The former
is of considerable breadth, as Philadelphia doorways go, and the
fanlight is of rather too intricate pattern and heavy scale. The latter
is exceptionally narrow, with pilasters in accord and a fanlight of
chaste simplicity. Like many others the door itself is dark painted and
in striking contrast to the other white wood trim. One notices at once
the strange placing of the knob at the top rather than in the middle of
the lock rail, and the footscraper in a separate block of marble in the
sidewalk at one side of the marble steps, the inference being that one
should scrupulously wipe his feet before approaching the door.

Similar to these, but showing better proportion and greater refinement
of detail, is the entrance to the Morris house, one of the best known
doorways in Philadelphia and notable as one of the relatively few
pedimental doorways of this type having the high four-panel double
doors. The pediment framing the simple but very graceful fanlight is
enriched by cornice moldings, hand-tooled to fine scale, the soffit of
the corona being fluted, the bed-molding reeded and the dentil course
being a famili