What is the reason for houses in the East having front doors 6 feet in the air?

The doors are there to open in hot weather to let the air circulate upstairs. Or in the past they were used for that. With central air now days they aren't necessary.

That is something I have never seen over here. The front door was for guests, and they would be led into the lounge, a room usually used by the parents in the evenings. Kids forbidden. Our access was to walk around to the back of the house and enter there, into the kitchen. As a rule the front door only could be opened with a key from the outside, and a turn button on the inside, so it was always locked. The back door was always unlocked and as far as I can recall, not even locked overnight. The origins behind the turn 21 and get the key of the door is vague, but the context was that once you turned 21 you received the key to the front door, and could come and go as you pleased, a sign of adulthood. That was the concept I lived with in the numerous houses I lived in as I grew up.

Often the house was built to have a deck or porch on that floor or level. Sometimes it was not completed or was later removed. Also, having a door this high keeps water from getting into that level of the house. Sometimes, also steps would lead up to that door. They may have also been built and left that way for the owner to put in a deck or porch on that level. My daughter's home in Wisconsin has just such a door. It can be opened to let the air into the rooms on that level. Does that answer your question?

In the Mississippi River area, it's possible that many towns have experienced severe flooding (bottom floor ends up completely under water). The upper door can have been installed to allow easy exit from top floor to a boat tied to the upper level. Some people don't want to leave when a flood warning is announced. They believe it will pass and not affect them, or want to wait until the last minute.

Further north, in the New England area (I was born in Maine) there are sometimes really severe snow storms that leave lower level doors and windows completely blocked by the snow. I remember that happening when I was a kid in the late 1940s. I was born in 1940. My stepfather opened an upper level window and was about to lower me down from the porch roof so that I could clear snow from the entry door below when he suddenly came up with another plan. I think my stepmother had called other neighbors and found out who had gotten out and was willing to come over on snow shoes and clear one of our doors of snow.

So, this is a couple of additional possibilities for the doors. But I think the failure to replace rotted second level porches is probably the reason for those doors being there more frequently than for the possible water or snow problems.

Ok, nothing to back this up on but maybe those strange doors (and, yes, I've seen them) are (a) suicide doors (might not be high enough to do real damage though), (b) escape doors in case your spouse came home while you're in the middle of some hanky panky, or (c) snow doors. It snows, in some place a LOT, and a door higher up would allow someone to get out and shove a passage to the front door.

If they are older homes, they might have at one time had a landing or deck, with stairs to go down. My aunt had such a deck at one time, but when it rotted away, they just removed it, and never replaced it. Then when the door itself rotted, she replaced that also. So it looked like a brand new door to nothing, 12 feet off the ground. LOL

Maybe in New England for a snow escape? LOL

I live in Virginia, and it would not meet code here, so it must have something to do with snow or something. Definitely wouldn't meet code for air circulation.

I live in NYS.

My basement rooms range from half to one third about ground.

Plus the land is a hill east to west and also north to south.

My front door is three steps above the ground.

The back door about four and a half feet above ground.

The side door is level with the ground and enters the basement.

http://i25.tinypic.com/332ta21.jpg

http://i26.tinypic.com/34o236g.jpg

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Floods. Air flow, or wanting to extend at a later date, which never came.

That first step through one of those doors is a doozy.