When Karen and Rit O'Donnell go to work each morning, it's a matter of rolling out of bed, grabbing a cup of coffee and walking down a flight of stairs.
The O'Donnells not only work downtown, they live on Main Street above their business, and they love it.
The talk of downtown has been the O'Donnells, whom city officials call an encouraging role model for others. They not only run a downtown business, they bought the building and renovated the second floor into a lavish, 1,500-square-foot apartment. It features 11-foot-high ceilings and an eclectic mix of art and collectibles which could easily grace the pages of a magazine on home design.
Residents involved in plotting the city's future, including Mayor Owen Quinn, hope the O'Donnells' efforts inspire others to commit to downtown, or at least show an interest in the debate. The latest opportunity to do so is at 6 p.m. Monday at the Yankee Pedlar Inn on Main Street, when consultant The Downes Group of New Britain presents its downtown plan.
A major question during years of discussion about downtown's future has been how to attract people and get them to spend time and money there. Not everyone can live on Main Street, but the O'Donnells and city officials say the couple is proof that downtown can include middle- and higher- income housing. That means more people downtown, with money to spend at downtown shops and restaurants.
"It's quite luxurious," said Mark McEachern, executive director of the Torrington Historical Society. "It's a wonderful re-use of a second floor space."
The O'Donnells, originally from Bristol, own and operate Remember When Antique Lighting Gallery and Consignment Center at 111 Main St., near the corner of Mason Street. They bought the nearly 100-year-old building four years ago, moving their business from rented space at 66 Main St., now part of the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts. They own the footprint of the building, the sidewalk in front of the store and a small space at the back of the building large enough for one vehicle and not much more.
The couple sold their five-room house with a garden, pool and cabana in Bristol and moved to Torrington with their two cats, Mickey and Deet.

Old building, new life
111 Main St. was built in 1893 as the first Torrington YMCA, according to Torrington Historical Society records. It had a brick, quasi-Moorish facade and a four-sided turret. The building housed the YMCA intil 1922 when it was sold for commercial use. It was remodeled in the 1930s, when the turret was removed and a 12-foot art-deco cement storefront extension added. After the YMCA, the building housed Stewart's and then Jon Marie, both well-known clothing stores.
At first, the O'Donnells slept on a mattress on the floor.
After organizing and decorating the main floor and mezzanine for their business the first two years, they have spent the last two years designing, renovating and decorating the second-floor living space. They have created an eye-appealing, three-room home. The apartment's decoration complements downtown's art-deco look and ranges from the 1860s to the 1950s, leaning heavily toward the Victorian and 1930s to 1940s periods - depending where you look.
The couple collects many things, from kitsch to fine antiques. That includes Campbell Kids "chalkware" faces and rooster pin-up lamps, metal bread boxes and Depression glass. There are pottery and cut glass vases, portraits and photographs and beaded evening bags. The items spill through the three main rooms as well as a bathroom-powder room, stairwell and hallway. Most of all, like in their shop, there are the lamps: marble lamps, motion lamps, radio lamps, Victorian lamps, standing lamps and table lamps, and then still more lamps, 70 in the living room-dining room alone.
There's spacious bedroom-sitting room with a non-working fireplace and a powder room featuring roses and Victorian handbags. Along with the lamps, the large parlor-dining room overlooking downtown also has a non-working fireplace, authentic-looking 1940-ish cabbage rose wallpaper, a wide Lincrusta (linoleum) ceiling-height molding around the room. They left the original dark woodwork and doors with frosted-glass windows in the hallway and created archways between rooms.
The specially-designed kitchen includes two sinks but no dishwasher for the couple, who have no children. The 1860s-era, extra-large East lakestyle cabinets with glass fronts have wrought iron pulls, vintage shelf paper and decals.
"Neither is done yet. We keep working on it," Karen O'Donnell said, of her business and home. "We wanted to feel that everything here would have been here through the 1950s," she said.
The O'Donnells, both in their early 50s, declined to say how much the project cost, but admit they have spent considerably more on the renovation than on the purchase of the building. Although she has tried, Karen O'Donnell has not received any financial help from the city. When grant money is available, it always seems to be used by the time she asks, O'Donnell said.
The O'Donnells put a new roof on part of the building, had the brickwork cleaned and new signs added, installed a security system, put up sheet rock for the apartment and updated the electrical and plumbing systems.
A cement angel sits gracefully on an alleyway window, as if pondering it all.
The couple worked with architect Michael Boe, who once had office space where their apartment is now. But the O'Donnells have done a lot of the interior work themselves. Rit O'Donnell recently completed a red line etched on the perimeter of the glass inserts on the kitchen cabinets, and both spent a weekend not too long ago painting the parlor ceiling molding.
The O'Donnells aren't through yet. Rit O'Donnell is thinking about a skylight. The next major project, however, will be restoration of the store front. The couple plans to remove the white aluminum panels that face Main Street, exposing the art deco cement blocks. Some of that original cement work is still visible on the south side of the building.

A different lifestyle
Living downtown has brought changes.
Their garden in Bristol was difficult to give up, but Karen O'Donnell has re-created a smaller herb garden - with rosemary, oregano, Johnny jump-ups and marigolds - on her alleyway fire escape. There are jardinieres throughout the apartment.
The couple has no grass to mow or weeds to pull and only a small sidewalk and single parking space, a cubby-hole between buildings off the Yankee Pedlar parking lot, to clear of snow in the winter. After a concert at the Warner Theatre when crowds are struggling to leave crowded parking lots and busy Main Street, the O'Donnells are already home, toasting each other and watching the traffic jams out their front window.
When Rit O'Donnell has a restless night and can't sleep, he's been known to take out the vacuum at 2 a.m. and give the business floor a good cleaning. The husband wih a Victorian handle-bar-style mustache and his wife walk hand-in-hand just about everywhere downtown - for exercise and to shop, eat out, visit a drug store or a movie - only taking out their car once or twice a week to do major grocery shopping or to visit mom.
"I'm so excited and thrilled," said JoAnn Ryan, head of the Main Street Action Team and newly named executive director of the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce. "They are leaders," Ryan said of the O'Donnells' downtown investment. "Sometimes we walk downtown and see their beautiful entranceway and think...'They live upstairs,'" she said.
Theirs is a second marriage for both the O'Donnells, who came to Torrington in 1991. She had worked in manufacturing and he owned a small chain of electronics stores. Together they had started a decorating business in their home. When the business became too large for a home, they began looking for a storefront. Karen O'Donnell said they looked in a 45-minute radius from home, and she particularly wanted West Hartford. But rents were too expensive there. They turned instead in Torrington's direction. "I'm really happy we ended up here," she said.
The building at 111 Main Street was ideal from the beginning, Karen O'Donnell said. It is of a size that allows them to operate a business and have an apartment but does not require them to become landlords for other businesses or apartment dwellers, she said.
"I would love to see more people do this. It's like condo living with no condo fees."