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In November, the rooftop "city room" becomes an aromatic conservatory harboring the refugees of summer: pots of lavender, mint, thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, and hibiscus. It's crowded, but there's still space for gazing through 10 glass panels at graceful bridges, 19th-century church steeples, and the Maumee River.

"Every morning, 350 days a year, I'm up here, reading the newspaper and drinking coffee," says Richard Rideout. "It's a big city and there's all this activity going on."

Adds his wife, Janet Albright: "At 7:30 a.m., the river's like ice and you can hear the coxswain calling. ... This is the place we hang out most."

Sixty-five feet high and home to occasional kestral pairs, the roof is also an axis of fun for these extroverts and their robust circle of friends and family. To the left, they can check out the instant-replay screen at Fifth Third Field.

"If we're not at the game, we usually have people over," says Ms. Albright, 51.

MULTIMEDIA

MULTIMEDIA: Sweet Homes: Sweet Penthouse (November 22, 2009)

Six years in their spectacular penthouse, the Rideout-Albright spousal unit comprises two of living-downtown's best ambassadors.

Their 5,500 square feet is boundaried by 28 arched windows, 14-inch-thick brick walls, gleaming plank floors, and open-joist ceilings up to 16 feet high. Above the kitchen, a metal catwalk purrs to be traversed. There are five distinctive bathrooms, many with antique fixtures, and two each of living, dining, sleeping, and office areas.

A benefit is an income stream from four tenants occupying offices on the lower two levels. And, Mr. Rideout, 64, coordinates occasional exhibits in the first floor's 1,850-square-foot Sur St. Clair Gallery.

But getting to the majesty required for a inaugural cocktail party (black-tie for Mayor Carty Finkbeiner in 2006), 12-foot columns, and a grand piano (Mr. Rideout plays), was a mighty undertaking. The 1889 building cost as much to renovate — about $385,000 — as it did to acquire. Its original occupant was Shaw-Kendall Co., engineers and designers of hot water and steam systems.

Walking to work

Mr. Rideout had moved downtown in the mid-1990s after a divorce, and loved walking to work at One SeaGate. Having done renovations in his previous home and on a gaff-rigged catboat, he was sniffing around for a project.

"I kept bicycling around the neighborhood just looking at buildings, watching what was going up for sale."

Ms. Albright lived in South Toledo and worked at Owens Corning's headquarters. Also divorced, she met Mr. Rideout through friends. When he grew serious about buying a building, she said she'd move to the concrete jungle if it had space for gardening, figuring, of course, there was no such animal.

They toured the building in January, 2001.

"It was like walking into a black hole. Richard got off the elevator and he said, ‘Oh! Can you see it?' I said, ‘Hell no!' It was nasty," says Ms. Albright, an avowed clean freak. "He saw it as a diamond in the rough."

The creaky wooden freight elevator opened to a huge space. They plugged in two light bulbs and saw plywood-covered windows (measuring 3-by-6-feet and all needing replacement) and an ancient stairway to the roof. Sheets of plastic caught drips from the roof. There were bath tubs, theatrical props, rows of theater seats, kitchen equipment, carpet, insulation, and a tool-crib cage.

Sellers Eric Hillenbrand and Jim Zaleski had installed furnaces, plumbing, and electric on the first two floors.

Not yet married, Richard and Janet formed Significant Other Properties, LLC. "We need a business structure. If I wanted her participate I might as well make her a partner," says Mr. Rideout.

In April they had an elegant rooftop dinner, popping open a $350 bottle of dry red French wine. (A disappointment.) "Then he got down on one knee and he put the ring on my finger."

Adds Mr. Rideout: "If we could get this project done and still like each other, we knew we were good for the rest of our lives." They married four years ago.

Eighteen months of renovations involved a legion of trades and craft people, friends, and their own sweat equity.

"We did it because everybody had fun doing it," says Ms. Albright a marketing manager at Therma-Tru Corp. in Maumee.

They moved in in July, 2003 and the following January invited all hands to celebrate at an open house attended by 400. "Everybody felt like they had a piece of it."

First on the renovation list was the roof. All materials — decking, wood, and glass to build the city room, a big grill, a fire pit — were loaded onto the elevator and carried two flights on the beat-up stairways.

For the shallow garden, they lugged 2,500 pounds of shredded, recycled truck tires and 1,200 pounds of topsoil and peat moss and spread them about four inches thick in raised beds. Shredded tires are lighter than dirt (a roof consideration) and provide drainage and insulation.

Roof drains were identified. A drip system and spray units were installed and timed to spray seven minutes three times a day.

"There's usually 8 to 10 miles per hour more wind and it's a few degrees cooler up here," says Mr. Rideout. To avoid roots infiltrating the roof, they planted clumps of nine different side-rooters: mosses, scented thymes, and blue-blooming ajuga. Roses, mums, pansies, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs filled dozens of pots. They've noticed honeybees, praying mantis, and cicadas, but no mosquitoes.

"My builder and I figured it out on the back of a brown paper bag or something," he says of the deck and the city room.

The wooden stairs were reconfigured and replaced by custom-fabricated aluminum stairways. From the roof they lead down to the loft, comfy with brown leather sofa and chairs, a big TV, and a nautical theme.

"It's a man cave, I'm telling you," says Ms. Albright.

Nineteen oars lean against a wall and are tucked into rafters. A glass-covered table is an old lobster trap; another is a boat's hatch cover built by Mr. Rideout. Model sailboats, an antique sextant and compass, and black-and-white pictures of sailboats complete the theme. For guests who sleep on an inflatable bed on this carpeted level, there's a small bathroom with shower.

A new 30-by-70-inch skylight above the stairs replaced the original. "It lets in so much more light," he says.

The loft is set off from the brick wall by about four feet, allowing natural light from the windows for both this and the main floor.

"We tried to keep this open and eliminate floor-to-ceiling walls," he says. Surrounding the loft's perimeter is a powder-coated steel railing that almost cost him his sanity. Its metal posts are connected by steel cables spaced four inches apart.

The railings were the biggest bugaboo for the city inspector, who said they violated code because a small child could fall through or climb over it. Mr. Rideout appealed and arrived at the hearing heavily armed: he combed the city, shooting pictures of similar railings in hotels, at local attractions, and in a city parking garage.

"It took on its own life form," says Ms. Albright of the challenge, which Mr. Rideout won.

Then there was the adjacent gravel parking lot they intended to pave and landscape.

"We sent the plans in. They said you have to have a drain in the middle of the parking lot tied in to the storm sewer. That would cost an extra $11,000 to $12,000," he says. "I told the city engineer I'd just leave it stone."

But a week later, a city crew paved the alley behind the lot, covering the storm sewer. Upset, Mr. Rideout called the city engineer's office and was told to pave the lot with its natural slope.

An aluminum deck, reinforced with steel beams, is a catwalk connecting the loft with his office. "We got ideas from books and I kept mental track of them."

His corner office has two brick and two purple walls. Against one, in an open frame that is actually the door to the furnace, are the spattered shirt and shorts he wore during renovations.

A circular steel stairway curls down to the office of his administrative assistant and a conference area. He's sold New York Life Insurance for 36 years. Walls in this room are coral and dark yellow. A door leads to the exterior hallway and the multicolored freight elevator.

Furniture and art

After bricks and rafters were sandblasted, Mr. Rideout spray-sealed them with a clear coat. The floor was sanded six times, and he estimates he set 6,000 nails with a ball-peen hammer before applying two layers each of epoxy resin and satin polyurethane.

Their architect, Paul Sullivan, has since moved into a renovated building down the street.

They puzzled over how to construct an open staircase from the main level to the loft. The final design was a canitlevered stairway attached to five 6-by-8-inch wooden supports built into the adjacent wall.

In addition to the piano, the living room has snazzy designer furniture, art that's mostly local, and a splendid cobalt-blue wall. On of the trio of columns installed was split open and wrapped around a support beam. It opens to the dining area, centered by her great-grandmother's walnut table and chairs and a solid nickel chandelier. A corner fireplace is surrounded by cobalt tiles and a gorgeous painting of a ballet dancer by the late Robert Heindel, a Toledo native, hangs above the mantel.

Sharing the fireplace is the master bedroom, which is entered from a beautiful pair of Art Nouveau doors with acid-etched peacocks on glass.

"We built the bedroom around the doors," she says Ms. Albright. With two brick walls and light carpeting, it's the only room with curtains. "Because the sun comes up over the river and into my face," she says. Pictures and sculptures of nudes line the walls, along with a couple of guitars. The ceiling is deeply soffited.

"I wanted something cozier here, something that didn't have furniture. I just wanted a really tranquil space. To me, this is my total unwind."

Their bathroom, a buttery green with a maroon ceiling, has a chrome-legged porcelain sink, and on a platform, a claw-foot tub, its exterior painted dark red. A5-by-8-foot tiled shower has a built-in niche she requested to make leg shaving easier. A little water closet houses a tiny corner sink, a stool, and a stained glass window in an original frame by local artist Janine Ody-Miller. Left in place is a bracket that once held a pipe; it's now used as a towel rack.

With the open floor plan, a color problem surfaced where mint green from the living area clashed with the kitchen's warm gold in a wide band near the ceiling.

"Terribly," she says.

"Horribly," he says.

Solution: Her daughter, Michelle Peters, buffered the juncture by painting a rich red design between them.

A pair of cast-iron support columns in front of the loft were mosaicized by Mr. Rideout's niece with shards of beer bottles and pieces of dishes she took a hammer to.

"Everybody had fun when they were down here working," she says.

The kitchen was built around a 150-year-old maple butcher's table from a Cleveland sausage shop. Its smooth, dense surface hints at undulation.

"They used to clean it with a plane," explains Mr. Rideout. It was apparently cleaned so much, he had to increase its height by adding four-inch wooden orbs to the bottom of each leg.

The granite counter is flecked burgundy. There are stainless steel appliances and pulls, and a six-burner stover. He's chief cook and she's bottle washer.

Above wooden kitchen cabinets is a gorgeous bouquet of eight large glass plates in brilliant colors. One shattered when the artist was hanging them, but he made a new piece. There's a small patio-style dining area.

"If I had it to do over again, I'd add 10 feet and furniture to the seating area because everyone gathers here," says Ms. Albright.

Off the kitchen, a guest bedroom is behind an antique leaded-glass pocket door. With maroon appointments and interior wall, its ceiling is partially open to the loft.

The adjacent bathroom is a pleasure palace appreciated by Ms. Albright's sisters. It has pale mustard walls, a big jacuzzi tub, and an enclosed steam shower that Mr. Rideout cranks to 100 degrees. "Add some aromatic salts and get the lactic acid out of the muscles after a good workout," he says.

A significant benefit to their downtown living: "We do a lot more neighboring here. You see ladders going up and down the street on the weekends," says Ms. Albright. And she excuses herself to jump a car for a neighbor.

Contact Tahree Lane at:
tlane@theblade.com
or 419-724-6075.

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