I would have to say
that you probably could, but I’m not sure I would recommend it. Let me give you
some ideas on what you need to consider.
Consider the age of the house and the door. Does the door fit well in the
opening? Is it warped or damaged? Is it worth trying to reuse as a Dutch door?
Often what appears to be a solid fir door is actually built up from laminated
blocks and then veneered to give it the appearance of solid wood. If you cut it
in two, this may or may not create problems.
Is there enough room for the door to be cut into two pieces and still have the
handle in the same place? Usually the handle is located a bit lower on a Dutch
door. Plugging and reboring for the latch set will usually not provide good
results.
The edges of the doors that you create by cutting the existing door in half
need to be milled or have stops attached so that they meet well and provide a
weather-strippable interface.
Speaking of weather-stripping, how is the existing door weather-stripped? Is it
interlocking metal, compressible vinyl, or some other material? You will need
to consider how the new doors will work to keep the weather out.
A standard exterior door has three hinges. You will need four hinges for a
Dutch door, which means you then would have to fill in the edge of the door
where the center hinge is now and add two more hinges. Although I have done
this many times on painted doors that I needed to match what was existing, it
is very time consuming and hard to make it look good.
The time and effort required to make it all work and look good does not
generally make economic sense. You would get much better results by installing
a new Dutch door. If the existing door is in good shape, you may be able to
sell it or at least donate it to a used building products outlet. I have turned
in things like that to a local "reuse" outlet and gotten store credit which I
then was able to use to buy old hardware that I needed to match another job.
So, the bottom line is that I would not recommend doing it, but you could
probably make it work if you want to devote the time and you are a great
carpenter. Look closely at the door, the hardware that is on it, and some
pictures of Dutch doors so that you understand what will have to change before
you decide to proceed. Check some local door stores to see what a new pre-hung
Dutch door would cost. Doing a poor job will give you a door that does not work
well, may be a security problem, and needs to be replaced in a few years when
it fails.