Romanian immigrant Joseph Soss didn’t start his career in the door hardware industry, but he did help to revolutionize it. After careers in bricklaying, construction, and the automotive industry, a ship-building endeavor brought Soss to the Philippines in the early 1900s. As he walked around a ship one day, he tripped over a hinge sticking up from a deck-mounted door. Asking himself why the hinge had to protrude, Soss put his engineering know-how to work. Before the ship pulled into port, he had his first sketch of a hidden hinge design. Soss Invisible Hinges was born.
Today, Soss’ great-grandson Neil Marko owns the global company, which specializes in hinges that sit inside door stiles and their frames. Designed for everything from entry doors to cabinet doors to fine furniture, the hinges can be found (or not found, as it were) in high-profile homes including the White House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, and Buckingham Palace. Several sizes and finishes are available to accommodate even heavy steel doors.
“Our hinge clientele is typically very high-end,” Marko says. “A homeowner that’s investing a lot of money in their cabinetry doesn’t want a bulky hinge to take away from the aesthetic. An invisible hinge is an ideal solution.” —Lauren Hunter, associate editor, REMODELING.
