Opening DOORS Amighini Architectural travels the world for beautiful doors By Tara Ryazansky Photos Max Ryazansky
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Amighini Architectural in Jersey City Heights, architect Noelia Amighini greets me at the door. It’s a large, beautiful, antique doorway that rises high above us. It’s so ornate that I take notice, but here at the Amighini showroom, it’s one of hundreds. “My great grandfather started all of this,” Noelia says as she shows me around. She navigates her way around marble fountains plucked from village town squares and portions of fireplace mantles with marble cherubs, wrought iron gates and old plaster pillars. “He had a demolition company.” She says that when he was taking down old buildings in Italy, he couldn’t bring himself to trash the lovely details. He started salvaging items like doors, stained glass windows, metal fixtures and some pottery pieces that Noelia still owns. “All of these things are from Europe,” Noelia says as we view the many doors. Each one is numbered by size, so customers can easily find something to fit. “They’re mostly from France and Italy. Some are from London. Some are from Germany and Spain too.”
Globe Trotters Prior to the pandemic Noelia and her brothers, all architects, traveled the globe looking for architectural artifacts to bring back to their locations in California, Italy, Argentina and of course, Jersey City. “One of my brothers found this place,” she says of the Beacon Avenue showroom. “My brother said, ‘This place is amazing. It’s so close to New York City. The buildings here are amazing, though some of the doors are terrible.’” Noelia says that a lot of the most beautiful Jersey City brownstones, as well as townhouses in neighboring Manhattan, were renovated years ago to include cheap big box doors. 16 • Jersey CITY Magazine ~ FALL | WINTER 2021
