Her kids had grown up and flown the nest. Her husband had passed away. Her big family home in the suburbs didn’t fit her lifestyle anymore.

It was time for Carol Redmond Johnson to downsize and simplify.

“I was looking for a condo,” she said. “Something low-maintenance.”

Maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted, though.

“I was looking at brand-new stuff, but I wasn’t feeling it,” she said. “My Realtor asked if I was willing to look at anything else. I said: ‘I’ll look in St. Paul.’”

It would be fun, she thought, to move from Shoreview to St. Paul — to return to the city.

“Thirty years ago,” she recalled, “I did rent off Grand and Grotto. The area was so lovely.”

It still is, she discovered. Her Realtor found her a special property.

“It was listed as a ‘Treehouse in St. Paul,’” she says. “Something about that was so alluring.”

It was a carriage house on Summit Avenue.

The listing read: “Secret one-of-a-kind ‘tree house’ carriage house with river bluff and downtown vistas. Summit Avenue prestige, plus privacy. A truly unique property with a transformative history from a turn-of-the-century carriage house and stable into a Mid-century modern gem secretly located in the prestigious Ramsey Hill neighborhood. Primed and ready for your custom renovation, creativity and vision. A magnificent wooded hillside lot with private brook, or pond landscaping potentials. Wildlife in the city.”

This time, house hunting felt right.

“It just felt really good,” Johnson said of her first impression. “It still does.”

But the carriage house, located behind a condominium and down a steep cobbled driveway on the 300 block of Summit Avenue, dates back to the 1870s and was technically not what she was seeking, especially since a 1960s remodel was now showing its vintage.

“I knew it would need a lot of repairs right away,” she said.

Still, she found herself looking past the warped windows, the broken stove and all the other old-house issues and complications that come with a property built in the 1800s and situated in a historic district.

“It felt like my heart was choosing it,” she says.

This is how an empty-nester who was seeking a low-maintenance condo ended up buying a very complex fixer-upper instead. The 1,785-square-foot carriage house with its two floors, two bedrooms, 1½ bathrooms and 0.36 acres, became hers in 2017.

Reality hit soon afterward.

“After I bought it,” she said, “I had a panic attack for a month straight.”

It started after she talked to a contractor.

“It was the first bid,” she said. “He said, ‘This is great! A project for the rest of your life, there will always be something to do.’ I didn’t want that. I wanted a beginning and an end.”

Then, through a designer at Holly Hunt, she found Jesse Jochim of Renaissance Builders in Maple Grove.

“He told me that a friend of his was looking to remodel a carriage house on Summit Avenue and it was going to be something unique and different,” Jochim says. “He said she was a very nice lady and he wanted someone she could trust and he thought of me, and I said yes, I’d love to meet her.”

They met at the carriage house. Jochim’s first impression of the little house wasn’t as magical as Johnson’s had been.

“There was snow on the ground,” he remembers, “and when we walked in, it smelled like must and mildew from years of just sitting here vacant and water dripping in. None of the windows would close all the way; there were towels on all the windowsills. It looked like there had been animals living in here. There were definitely mice but, since the windows were unable to close, some larger animals made it in — some birds and a squirrel.”

Clearly, there was much to do to return the carriage house to the dignity of its address. Related Articles Man, 38, dies of apparent natural causes at Ramsey County jail

St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff

Sept. 30 is last day for public comment on Pigs Eye Lake makeover

Staffers at MPR’s music stations The Current and Classical MPR vote to unionize

St. Paul woman sentenced for manslaughter in man’s death; murder charge dismissed

“We talked for about an hour,” says Jochim. “I walked around the house, took a lot of notes and a lot of measurements and found out what she was looking for, went back to the office.”

He made a plan for what he thought needed to be done to not only make the house habitable, but also beautiful. He wasn’t sure Johnson would agree.

“When we originally talked about budgets, the budget was a little lower than what you would expect to spend remodeling a place like this — an entire house,” Jochim said. “I expected I’d call her back and give her the information and she would just say, ‘Thank you for your time, but …’”

That’s not what happened.

“She called me back two days later and said, ‘Let’s do it,’ ” he says.

Johnson explains: “I’ve never done anything like this before. So, initially, I thought it was just replacing the windows and the stove. When I began to realize I was in way over my head, I knew I needed a contractor and a designer. Working with Jesse, I began to see the whole picture.”

Jochim’s vision was “an ‘organic modern’ carriage house,” he says.

They couldn’t begin realizing that vision immediately, however; that’s not how it works when remodeling a property within a historic district — at least not since 1976, when the city of St. Paul ratified the Heritage Preservation Ordinance.

“There was a lot of red tape to get through,” Jochim says.

He understood the weight of history.

“The historic preservation commission wants to make sure we’re not going to ruin the experience for the neighbors or anyone driving down the street,” Jochim says. “They had to approve everything we were going to use on the outside — every paint color, every window, all the light fixtures, and make sure the choices were suitable for a house on Summit Avenue.”

These rules were not in place the first time the carriage house was remodeled — but the Pioneer Press was. In a feature story published April 23, 1970, the Pioneer Press detailed the carriage house’s mid-century remodel by Walter and Lucy Fricke — as well as what happened to the mansion that once stood on the grounds.

“Until it was demolished a year ago,” Eleanor Ostman wrote, “there was a massive red stone house on the bluff.”

That Summit Avenue mansion belonged to Lucy Fricke’s aunt.

“When she died,” Ostman wrote, “the Frickes considered buying the house from the estate and making it into a duplex. That proved impractical, so they turned to the century-old garage.”

It’s difficult to imagine a Summit Avenue teardown these days — but at least some of the mansion’s parts were saved and incorporated into the carriage house, including its front doors (those double doors, carved out of butternut, are still there).

Almost 50 years ago, Ostman visited the carriage house as that first remodel was underway.

“When this reporter visited the property in late March 1969,” Ostman wrote, “bats were protesting their eviction. Work began at the bare walls of the dark, dreary garage. What has evolved is a bright, light-filled home, full of exciting geometric spaces and a feeling of spaciousness, although the building is only 32 by 36 feet.”

Lucy Fricke seemed as thrilled with the setting as she was with the remodel.

Ostman wrote: ” ‘It’s like living in the country,’ says the lady of the house in the tree tops. “We see all kinds of wildlife; pheasants, rabbits and for the first time we’ve been able to see the tops of birds’ heads.’ ”

The 2018 evolution of the carriage house included keeping some of the mid-century details (a skylight peeking through the roof timbers) as well as holding onto some of the older features (the half-circle stairwell is a remnant of the turntable that was used to position the “horseless carriages”); and adding some 21st century additions, like the Hennepin Made light fixtures that look like branches, an ode to that treehouse feel. Photos from the remodel can be viewed on Renaissance’s Instagram page at @renaissance_builders.

On a recent September morning, while a crew labored to match the floor of her terrace to the ancient-looking cobblestone driveway, Johnson was on hand to watch the progress. But it was the view that kept her looking up at the horizon.

“The view sold me,” Johnson says. “It’s a little treehouse in town.”

And she is the new “lady of the house in the tree tops.”

What: Parade of Homes Remodelers Showcase

Where: The St. Paul carriage house, at 360 Summit Ave., is one of 55 homes opening up for this weekend’s Parade of Homes Remodelers Showcase.

When: Noon to 6 p.m., Friday (Sept. 28) through Sunday (Sept. 30)

Admission: Free (except for two “Dream Homes” — the $5 admission fees support the BATC-Housing First Minnesota Foundation). Related Articles Man, 38, dies of apparent natural causes at Ramsey County jail

St. Paul district to wait on reopening schools, citing lack of staff

Sept. 30 is last day for public comment on Pigs Eye Lake makeover

Staffers at MPR’s music stations The Current and Classical MPR vote to unionize

St. Paul woman sentenced for manslaughter in man’s death; murder charge dismissed

Description by Renaissance Builders: “Organic Modern meets American Classic in this 1870s carriage house transformation. By blending the materials used during the original build with brand-new concepts and designs, we were able to create a truly unique and wonderful space. What this little carriage house lacks in size, it makes up for in boldness and detail. You will fall in love with every detail, from the timber-frame pergola overlooking downtown St. Paul, to the custom-built light valence arching over the floating walnut staircase.”

Tour info: Paradeofhomes.org