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San Antonio advisory board backs staff call to retain historic wood windows at Lowellwood house
Summary
The Compliance and Technical Advisory Board voted to support staff guidance that 12 original wood windows at 135 West Lowellwood be repaired and only three already nonhistoric windows be replaced, rejecting the applicant's request to replace all 15 with vinyl units.
The Compliance and Technical Advisory Board voted Friday to support staff recommendations that 12 original wood windows at 135 West Lowellwood be repaired rather than replaced, and that three nonhistoric windows be replaced under staff stipulations.
The decision followed a presentation by homeowner and applicant Ron Alon, who asked the board to allow replacement of 15 windows — 12 original wood windows and three nonhistoric windows — with custom-fit Ply Gem vinyl windows. Alon's presentation noted cost and scheduling concerns with full restoration and offered to donate the removed original windows to local reuse organizations.
Staff recommended against wholesale replacement. An Office of Historic Preservation staff member explained that the board’s guidelines favor repairing original wood windows and allowing replacement in kind only when repair is not feasible; staff said the historic integrity of the original wood windows is the basis for the recommendation. After commissioners’ questions and discussion, Chair Juanita Sepulveda moved to support staff’s recommendation; the motion carried unanimously.
Alon told the board the house is a 1928 Spanish Revival in the Monte Vista Historic District and said the Ply Gem windows would be installed within the existing framing and would be visually indistinguishable from the originals. He said full restoration quotes he has been given verbally were “around the same price” as the Ply Gem replacement but that contractors were backed up and restoration could take months. Alon said Ply Gem replacements would cost about $5,800 compared with $36,000 for Pella wood windows and that refurbishing was “nearly the same price” as high-end replacement.
Board members and staff pressed Alon to obtain written restoration estimates from qualified preservation contractors and noted capacity constraints in the local preservation trades. An Office of Historic Preservation representative who inspected the property said the sash and frame still have substantial original fabric and appear repairable; staff said windows approved for replacement typically do not have the level of intact structure seen at 135 West Lowellwood.
Alon also said he plans to remove and donate the original windows to the Material Innovation Center or Habitat for Humanity and to restore an original wood entry door currently covered by a metal panel.
The board’s action: support staff’s recommendation that the 12 historic wood windows (identified by staff as windows numbered 4–15) be repaired and that the three existing nonhistoric windows (windows 1–3) be replaced subject to staff stipulations. The board asked the applicant to work with staff on next steps and follow the Office of Historic Preservation’s approval process for any replacement windows.
The vote was unanimous.
