Through the Looking Glass at King's Hill Condominiums

 

Sometime in the near future, workers will descend on the King’s Hill Condominiums (nee: King’s Hill Apartments)  located near Providence Park and will start stripping all stucco off the 114-year-old four story building.

 Plans call for application of wall insulation, plywood sheathing to increase earthquake resistance, new roofing and a three-course stucco skin that should make the building look much as it did when it was completed in 1907.

 At first, the plans also called for installing new windows on all four floors.  However, Certa Building Solutions, a firm that concentrates on exterior envelopes for new and historic structures, came up with a solution that may set an interesting precedent on the condos at 731 S.W. King Ave. Instead of new windows, the old ones will be removed and rebuilt with insulated double-pane glass.

Reconditioning rather than replacing windows is a big deal in the preservation world.  Advertisements on television, magazines and the internet incessantly try to convince homeowners to replace their "old" windows with some new -- and made mostly from plastic.  

To preservation nerds, the only honest reaction to the hard window sell is "ugh." 

Reconditioned windows can be largely indistinguishable visually from the originals, as well as providing better insulation.  On this building, the improved windows also will allow removal of storm windows that were added later.

 While reconditioning wood windows has become more common on historic houses, the King’s Hill condos appear to be one of the largest buildings where all windows will be reconditioned rather than replaced.

 James Riley, director of architecture at Certa, said Viridian Window Restoration of Portland will do the window work.  “We will not be hiring a contractor with a pickup and a saw,” he told the Portland Landmarks Commission.  “That’s not how these things are done.” Viridian has a trailer brought to sites that has all the equipment needed for cleaning and routing sashes to accept the half-inch glass panes.  The firm also saves and reuses original hardware to the extent possible.

You can see the process here:  http://viridianwindows.com/what-we-do

 The 1907-era building is a contributing element in the King’s Hill National Historic District, but its craftsman-era style is less elegant than many mansions and other apartment buildings near it.  It was one of 21 apartments designed and built by William L. Morgan between 1905 and 1911.  Those years were early in the big boom in Portland’s population following the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition.

Riley said the condo’s existing stucco had been patched many times as it suffered water damage.  He said his firm studied “targeted repair work” but concluded that a whole new skin was the better solution because it would be less susceptible to water damage.  “We’d really like this building to last another couple hundred years,” he said.

Riley said restoration work is intended to replicate the original design as closely as possible, right down to color choices.  “These are too valuable as buildings not to treat with care.”

 The landmarks commission, which is charged with approving exterior changes to historically-designated properties, approved the Certa plan unanimously.  “I’m so ecstatic that you are keeping the windows,” said Commissioner Maya Foty, a preservation architect who often cites the benefits of window restoration as opposed to replacement.  She said windows made with old-growth wood can be upgraded to the same thermal standards as replacements at a lower cost.  

 Commissioner Ernestina Fuenmayor, a historic preservation specialist, said she hoped the project would become encourage preservationists working on larger buildings to evaluate window reconditioning instead of replacements. 

 -----Fred Leeson

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