As the El Cortez's renovations continue, they are replacing most of the electrical and now are replacing all the windows on the El Cortez. Some history buffs in town emailed me, worried that doing this could remove the El Cortez from the list of registered historic landmarks.
The El Cortez is not bound or required to preserve the building's history, but it would be a nice thing to do in the process of renovating it.
What are your thoughts? Do you feel it's important to preserve the history and character of the building? It's hard to draw a conclusion without knowing the state the current windows are in. I would not be surprised if the older windows had issues opening and closing and would require repair, not to mention on the efficiency side of things, new windows are more energy-efficient. The 1920 bungalow I live in now already had its windows replaced when I bought it and moved in, and I often ponder if I would have replaced the windows myself if they weren't already. Probably not, because I love history.
Our 1906 bungalow had aluminum sliders installed years ago by a previous owner on the sun porch and in one bank of side windows. I had those replaced with vinyl double hung windows. We are opening up our front porch and we did order wood framed double hungs for the for the front of the house. I think in hindsight would have done wood on my replacements just for the opportunity to paint the sashes an accent color. That said, there was little left of original detail inside or outside of our home when we bought it. It was a done as a cheap rental, right down to the fake slate sheet vinyl flooring and the fiberglass drop in bath enclosure.