Windowgate, A Cautionary Tale

There’s certainly no love in Town Hall.In order to save a building, to keep it out of harm’s way, and have it perform respectably in terms of both energy usage and environmental degradation, you have to show it some love. For decades, Town Hall, formerly Southampton High School, has suffered from all sorts of bad fixes and unfortunate improvements. People who work in the building don’t seem to like it and there’s been talk of abandoning it altogether for new quarters elsewhere.

So why don’t they like it? Have they ever really looked at it closely? Could it be that this structure with its award-winning pedigree has been so mutilated over the years that they can’t see the proverbial forest for the trees?

The nationally renowned architect William Lawrence Bottomley (1883-1951), who held a degree in architecture from Columbia University and completed a course of study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, won the commission for the high school in a national design competition in 1912. The competition mandate required the design to be Colonial in style in order to blend with the existing architecture of the village.

Mr. Bottomley chose the Georgian idiom for the building and gussied it up in red brick with marble trim. At the entrance section of the building Ionic columns hold up a majestic pedimented portico that is flanked by classical, symmetrical wings on either side.

The hipped roof attic is capped at its center by a graceful domed cupola. Other lovely touches demonstrating Mr. Bottomley’s understanding of Georgian detailing and his wonderful sensitivity to scale and form include carved swags and wreaths in the entrance pediment along with dainty muntin bars in the barrel vaulted dormers. Upon completion, the building was actually considered in architectural circles to be one of the finest examples of classical architecture in New York State. Town Hall was also included in an early survey done for the 1999 Comprehensive Master Plan of 187 historically significant buildings deemed worthy for landmark designation.

The Southampton Town Board recently approved the replacement of the single pane, wood windows in the auditorium area of the building. The new units will be made from extruded aluminum with insulated glass. While the muntin divisions will match the old windows, the profiles of the extrusions cannot be matched to the existing configurations. According to the town engineer, Christine Fetton, the rationale for the replacements had to do with energy loss, significant rot in the windows, and much needed resiliency in the face of upcoming storms. She also noted that these existing windows had actually replaced the originals, which blew out in the 1938 hurricane. Restoring the existing windows would be time consuming compared to installing replacement units and the town’s concern was that the restoration process would disrupt active office areas.

The project architects, Chaleff and Rogers, put together the requirements and drawings for the job. While four contractors did a walkthrough, only one actually submitted a qualified bid, which was within the budget parameters. This same company replaced the windows in the Bridgehampton School, and those windows with the same manufacturer, which will also be used at Town Hall, fell under the purview of the State Historic Preservation Office and met with their approval. Paul Rogers, who calls himself a purist when it comes to replacement windows, would have liked to use the wood windows, but the cost of potential maintenance was a deciding factor in the town’s decision to go with aluminum replacement units. He also said that they really wouldn’t look different from the windows being replaced when viewed from 10 feet away.

In all of this there are a few things that are quite difficult to comprehend.

First, the restoration of wood windows with low-e glass (low-emissivity glass) coupled with a weatherstripped storm window, which could be installed on the inside of a room, would be equal in terms of energy savings to the double glazed replacement windows. Second, the public has become conditioned to the mass marketing of replacement windows with a stream of associated misinformation purporting that the installation of replacement heritage windows will actually make buildings energy efficient. This, however, is blatantly untrue (see “Myth Busting Replacement Windows,” Residence Section, October 1, 2009).

Despite the 100- to 200-year payback on energy savings for replacement windows, the public also believes that insulated glass is the significant factor in window performance. It is actually infiltration from openings in and around the sash, which causes the convective air currents associated with those old drafty windows.

A single pane window, according to the Whole Building Design Guide, has an insulation value of R-1. Most double insulated glass units have a value of R-3. If the existing walls of a historic building have an R-value in the teens, the difference between R-1 and R-3 won’t offer substantial enough energy savings to validate the cost of replacement units along with disposal of waste materials.

Additionally, the old units are also “green,” because the embodied energy used for extraction of materials and processing, as well as their manufacture, transportation and installation have already been expended. Also, once the historic architectural fabric of a building has been removed it can never be replaced. Lastly, the decision to replace was based on economics and convenience.

While the building is not a designated landmark (and probably will never be due to the misconception that any renovation work will be subject to the standards of authenticity and consequently cost more), Town Hall, nonetheless, is a heritage building. That the town never even consulted informally with their own Landmarks and Historic Districts Board for advice on restoration versus replacement seems like both an oversight and a lost opportunity.

Replacement windows, touted as maintenance-free, convey the notion that they won’t require repair. Yet, when the seals fail over time and other components degrade, these modern units, because of the way they’re constructed, cannot be restored as wood windows can. Instead, the windows will be on a self-perpetuating cycle of replacement every 20 to 30 years.

Town Hall has been perceived unfairly as an outdated older building that is energy inefficient. Older buildings, like Town Hall, actually perform quite well according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Commercial buildings constructed before 1920 actually perform on a par with buildings constructed since 2000 in terms of BTU consumption.

The energy consumption of buildings spanning the mid-century decades, built during the era of cheap oil, are 20 percent less efficient. Town Hall was built in an era when nature wasn’t designed out of the building. It had cross ventilation, repairable windows, natural day lighting, and mass walls of masonry, which allow for thermal lag and occupant comfort—all good things.

While the Town Board has invested time and resources to mandate sustainability for the homes of its citizens, it has treated its own home like a patchwork quilt. It’s time for the town to develop a phased master plan for the Town Hall physical plant in terms of sustainability and energy management. Not only will it be the right thing to do for the building, but it will also show an understanding of the value of the embodied energy it already possesses. By putting some love into it and recasting it for 21st-century use, our local government would really be leading by example.

Anne Surchin is an East End architect and co-author of “Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930.”