I don’t think anyone I know notices them but front doors, side doors, inside doors, most of them have a very prominent cross on them as part of the design, at least in california. Most of the time the crosses are right side up (whew)…but not always. They are right on the middle of the door.
Any architects in the house that know what’s up with these?
It sounds to me like you are describing a ‘frame and panel’ door. Each part of the door has a specific name and many times designed with each part adding to the structural integrity.
The long vertical pieces where you find the hinges on one and the doorknob on the other are called ‘stiles’ and the horizontal pieces are called ‘rails’,a ‘bottom’, a ‘top’ and sometimes a ‘lock’ or ‘middle’ rail near the middle where the lockset is installed. Vertical pieces that fit between the rails are called ‘muntins’. These pieces make up the frame of the door.
The pieces that fit inside the frame are called panels and are allowed to ‘float’ inside the frame to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood to prevent them from splitting. Your basic 4 panel door therefore looks like it has a cross which could be formed with a middle rail and the muntins above and below it.
Just to add one thing. The middle rail is usually set to be the same height as the door handle and lockset. On really tall doors this will look like an upside down cross. On regular doors this is not as noticeable.
You live in Vampire Country! And evidently no one has told you! I’m amazed you’re unscathed!
Quick! Put up garlic! Or, if you can find it, wolfbane!
Rails and stiles, they’re called. If you could even get a big enough tree to yield a single plank (this is pre fiberboard days), it’d warp and rack so bad so fast as to be a waste of wood in no time. It is easier and less expensive to make doors out of multiple parts. It also makes better, lighter, doors. The structure (“framing”) of the door is the rail-and-stile corss parts. The rectangular thingies are panels; raised (bevel-edged) panels in better quality work.
Cheeseball pressed steel and fiberglass now imitates this work in modern construction. But traditions continue.
Some old-time New Englanders call them “Christian doors” for an obvious reason.
Looking at doors, I think they are one of the most boring things in the word, but these messages make them interesting.