Client Images – Foundation Vent Cover – American Camellia Society

The American Camellia Society completed construction of a new building to house their Camellias.  They chose our Louis XIV Foundation Vent Covers for the exterior which look very handsome with the Georgian architecture and Louis XIV Decorative Grilles to cover the vents on the inside for  ventilation for the camellias.

Louis XIV Style Foundation Vent Covers

These decorative foundation vent covers are made exclusively for crawl spaces.  They consist of two separate parts, the frame which is attached to the foundation and the grille which is removable.  Both are cast from an exterior grade urethane resin that won’t rot, rust, corrode or grow mold.  The grille can be removed by unscrewing four knurled knobs, in order to seal off the foundation in cold weather months by inserting a sealing plate behind the grille, or to put in a fiberglass screen mesh behind the grille in the warm weather months to allow ventilation in the crawl space. The homeowner can service these vents from the outside of the house without having to crawl into the crawl space.  Each grille provides 73 square inches of ventilation with the fiberglass screen mesh installed.  All installation hardware, plus the sealer plate and fiberglass screen mesh is included.  The decorative foundation vent covers use historic masters which have been scanned and digitized to create a functional and attractive architectural feature replacing standard industrial foundation vent covers.

The American Camellia Society is a national membership organization dedicated to fostering appreciation for and knowledge of plants of the genus Camellia. Founded in 1945, the Society is headquartered at Massee Lane Gardens near Fort Valley in central Georgia. Massee Lane Gardens has nine acres of camellia plantings and an additional twenty-plus acres devoted to specialty gardens and collections.

Today there are recognized over 200 different species of Camellia – all native to the Orient. The Camellia is known in Japan as Tsubaki. For many centuries, before the westernization of Japan, the native tsubaki or “tree with shining leaves” held a special place in Japanese thought. It was a belief of the Shinto religion that the gods in spirit form made the flowers of the tsubaki their home when on an earthly visit. Plantings of the tsubaki were an essential feature of temple gardens, graveyards, and other areas associated with the religious life of the community. Today, many old varieties of camellia may be found in the old temple compounds of Japan. Camellias are not as popular as cut flowers in Japan because they are associated with “beheading”. The camellia blossom often falls off the plant in its entirety, symbolic of a man’s head being cut off.