Updated Post at Historic Preservation Sitka
The above photo was taken October 23 2019, and is of the back side (West) of Stevenson Hall (1911), one of a suite of buildings forming the campus quadrangle of the Sheldon Jackson School National Historic Landmark. The contractor has gutted the building, and is preparing to build a two-story addition, of about 20 feet square, that would copy the jerkin-head gable roof.
The small addition on the right, built in the 1920s, will be rebuilt with a balcony for a roof. The design of the addition, the balcony, and a new bay window on the north side are a loss of the original architecture on the North and West facades, but were approved with the idea that they will be mostly out of sight from the primary, East facade and the Sheldon Jackson quadrangle.
Update June 2021
See full post at Historic Preservation Sitka. Stevenson Hall, 1911, Sheldon Jackson School National Historic Landmark. The Sitka Summer Music Festival is redoing this National Historic Landmark building in a $4.2 million project.
The Sitka Summer Music Festival announced in October 2019 that even though they would still be removing the building’s original windows, that they would not use the Anderson fiberglass and vinyl-clad replacements specified in the Festival’s design documents. This is a huge step forward.
The Sitka Music Festival plans were to replace the building’s windows, but instead of using replica windows, they planned to use vinyl- and fiberglass-clad Anderson windows, which are made for new construction, not for historic buildings.
Those windows would have been inappropriate in every way, including making this building look very different from the others on the quadrangle. The Sitka Music Festival has now announced that they will be getting replacements that are similar in appearance to the original windows. They also committed to placing the new windows within the plane of the wall, like traditional windows, rather than mounting on the surface of the wall, the way Anderson and most other new-construction and cheaper replacement windows do, so that this building will look like the other buildings on the quadrangle.
The Anderson windows would have been inappropriate in every way for a historic building, in the way they look, the short lifespan, and the changes that have to be made to the building. The Anderson type of replacement window has one large piece of glass instead of multiple panes. The dividers are fake, and the exterior surfaces are painted fiberglass (polyester) and vinyl (“Fibrex,” which is vinyl with wood flour filler), so they can never look right.
It is possible that Anderson windows could not physically be installed in this building. Replacement windows like Anderson are installed using flanges that attach to the building’s exterior sheathing. That means that the window trim must be completely replaced. The wall framing has to be modified as well. Even replacing these replacement windows (which has to be done every 20 years or so) requires removal of all interior and exterior trim. On Stevenson Hall, the exterior trim is very complex and continuous.
While the windows now specified by the Sitka Summer Music Festival are much better in terms of appearance than Anderson-type replacement window, they are extremely expensive, and their longevity is even less than standard replacement windows (which is 20 years).
On Stevenson Hall the 40 or so windows were in reasonable condition, and a quote for complete professional restoration in Seattle was a fraction of the cost of replacements, even Anderson replacements, and much less than the replica windows. Restored wood windows last longer, look better, and with inexpensive interior glazing or storm windows deliver performance equivalent to replacements. The science and products available are always advancing, and is worth a look if you have any kind of renovation or improvement planned on an old building – even if it is not historic – it can save you money. This has been shown in studies throughout North America and Europe.
A historic preservation approach saves a substantial amount of money on many projects. Historic preservation starts with identifying the character-defining features of a building, all aspects of quality design, construction, use and maintenance, in a life cycle cost analysis. It includes a thorough understanding of existing conditions, values and modern needs. This yields the most cost-effectiveness over the life of the building.
By including all cost, sustainability, and longevity factors, historic preservation has less impact on the environment, and preserves unique architecture and an authentic experience for future generations. These results are not hard to get. All it takes is planning, research, outreach to similar projects, and keeping up with developments in construction science. Organizations including the National Park Service, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and state Historic Preservation offices have resources available to the public.
About your post the Lost Decade in Sitka history, I’d like to compliment that writer and give my appreciation. Who is the person? Then, I’d wish that each writer would overcome his/her modesty or anonymity and sign the article with the writer’s name. There might also be an issue of accountability, too.
Hi, thank you! I didn’t mean to be modest or anonymous, all the posts are by me, Rebecca Poulson, other than a handful by students in a 7th grade literature circle several years ago (they all graduated this spring!). I’ll try to stick my name on more of them!
How did you run across the piece?