Syracuse, NY - For more than 100 years, the two-story house on top of the former Moyer carriage and car factory on Syracuse's North Side has been a mystery to countless passersby.

Is it a real house? Does anybody live there? Was it the house that stood on the property before the factory was built in 1895?

The answer to all of those questions is no. It looks very much like a house from the outside. It even comes complete with a door and multiple windows. But in fact it is just a shell of a building to protect the motor that powers the five-story building's ancient, but still working, freight elevator.

The daughter of the man who built the factory, Harvey Moyer, said in a 1937 newspaper interview that the house was an "architectural gimmick" used to attract attention to her father's business, which operated on the site from 1895 to 1915.

Tour of Former Penfield Manufacturing Co. 27 Gallery: Tour of Former Penfield Manufacturing Co.

But over the decades, subsequent owners of the building - the Porter-Cable Machine Co. and then the Penfield Manufacturing Co., a maker of mattresses and bedroom furniture -- kept the mystery alive by not allowing a close inspection of the house by outsiders, let alone news photographers.

That's not the case with the building's newest owner, Yiorgos Kyriakopoulos. The former owner of a New Jersey trucking company agreed to take a photographer and reporter from The Post-Standard and Syracuse.com on a tour of the 118-year-old complex bordered by North Salina, Wolf and Park streets.

The building has been vacant since Penfield closed in 2006. Kyriakopoulos bought the former factory for $200,000 last year and hopes to turn it into a mixed-use facility with storefronts and loft apartments. For now, he's using it to store old vehicles, including a 1945 Seagrave fire truck from Hoosick Falls in Rensselaer County.

The factory has become an historical curiosity because of the mysterious house on its roof. The house can be seen in a 1915 postcard depicting the Moyer factory.

Most Syracusans have no idea the complex was once a place where carriages and automobiles, power tools and mattresses were made. They just know it as "the building with a house on the roof."

Kyriakopoulos said he may eventually create an office for himself in the house. In the meantime, he's planning to fix up the exterior, replacing broken windows and ripping off roofing material that a previous owner used to cover up the structure's cedar siding.

He's also planning to put lights on the old factory's roof to illuminate the house at night for motorists passing by and for visitors to the nearby Destiny USA shopping mall.

Kyriakopoulos said he's had lots of people ask about the roof-top house since he bought the complex.

"Everyone wants to come up and see the little house," he said.

Contact Rick Moriarty at rmoriarty@syracuse.com or (315) 470-3148. Follow him on Twitter @RickMoriartyCNY and on Facebook at rick.moriarty.92.