r: What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from your years of retrofitting school buildings into residential spaces?
Noyes: A major one is it’s cheaper to reuse existing materials and architectural features than to replace them. We completed Central Grammar 40 years ago and installed aluminum replacement windows without mullions because that was what was available in the market at the time. There were three continual problems with those windows:
- 1. They had insulated glass, which, when you’re as close to the ocean as we are, has a lifespan of about five years. The salt air corrodes the aluminum spacer bar between the glass and the glass begins to fog up.
- 2. The windows are in the range of 52-inches wide and 11-feet high, so elderly people couldn’t open them. The glass was too heavy.
- 3. The windows operated with spring balances, which are notoriously breakage-prone. With more than 350 windows, we were losing spring balances at a rate of a couple per week.
We were spending $20,000 per year on maintaining and repairing the windows on this building. We recently replaced all the windows with custom-made wood, single-glazed, true—and historically appropriate— mullioned, single-hung windows. Energy codes are satisfied with tempered-glass storm panels mounted on the inside of and operable with the sash. The natural African mahogany is visible on the interior, and the exterior is factory custom-painted. The windows operate with weights in the original weight pockets, new pulleys and stainless-steel chains. Now the windows can be easily opened or closed; weights can be adjusted to within a few grams to get the balance right, and, with single glazing, glass replacement is easy and fogging is non-existent. The windows and installation cost about twice what an aluminum replacement window would cost. The final argument, which I think sold this concept to our funding sources, was the fact that this was a 100-year window while most factory-produced windows are considered serviceable for 20 years.
Another thing—and this is almost a religion with me—I hide utilities in existing architectural features. Older school buildings have what look like chimneys running up through the roof. They’re actually air exhaust ducts, part of an air circulation system. On one project recently we were putting in new gas boilers. The mechanical contractor wanted to run the new stainless-steel liner right up through the five hallways and box it in. Instead, I had my slate roofing subcontractor install the liner in the existing brick chimney, maintaining the architectural integrity of the building’s roof line and interior corridors. I used to be a pretty easygoing guy, but these days I know what I want and I know what can be done.
r: What is most rewarding about what you do?
Noyes: If you look at minimum property standards, a one-bedroom is 625 square feet. We take an 800- to 850-square-foot classroom and make it a one-bedroom apartment. I can build a 20 percent larger apartment in less time and produce a product that people identify with.
People are quite often connected to the buildings we develop. It’s not unusual to find someone living in the building who went to school there. We have one tenant who graduated from the high school, taught English in the building her entire professional life and then—in retirement—ended up living in the building. I also once came upon a woman standing in the stairway of a condominium we were finishing. I asked her if I could help her with something, and she said, “No. I just want to stand here because it’s the spot where my husband proposed to me.”