Sometimes an early assignment can help set the course of one’s career. That’s how it went for Ken Rideout, who moved from Michigan to California in 1975 to help a friend remodel a historic house. Rideout never looked back. That first project, a Pasadena, Calif., residence by Arts & Crafts luminary Louis B. Easton, led to a renovation of an even more historically important Greene & Greene–designed house next door. Other prestigious commissions followed over the years, and in 1999, Rideout started Newhaven Builders. In total, he’s worked on more than 400 historic homes in southern and central California.
These include Craftsman and Spanish Colonial Revival–style homes, as well as Tudors, Victorians, and mid-century moderns. Some highlights include renovations of nine houses by Greene & Greene, the brothers and Arts & Crafts masters who practiced in the early 1900s; a remodel of a residence in San Marino, Calif., designed by Spanish Colonial Revival virtuoso George Washington Smith; and an in-progress remodel of a mid-20th-century modern house in Pasadena designed by Buff & Hensman Architects. Typically, Rideout’s projects blend elements of restoration and renovation. “Most houses need to be renovated every 35 to 50 years,” he says. “People want it to look vintage, but they want the comforts of today.”
As the son of an electrician and as a licensed electrician himself, Rideout takes a particular interest in updating lighting systems. “Often, the lighting in these older houses was horrible,” he says. He also notes that most modern-day homeowners prefer stone countertops over the homes’ original tile or wood. Rideout has worked as a finish carpenter as well as a general contractor, and he relies on his long experience to tell him which items in a house are worth saving or replicating. “You have to follow the direction the house gives you—what things are original and need to be repeated, and what things have been added on or done poorly,” he says.
Rideout knows he’s lucky to be based in Pasadena, with its rich trove of well-preserved historic homes. He also works out of his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., 100 miles away. Rideout’s staffers have teamed with him for many years—some more than three decades—and they have the skills to show for it. “They can do anything you want,” he says.
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Newhaven Builders / Pasadena, Calif., and Santa Barbara, Calif. / www.newhavenbuilders.com / Years in business: 13 / Employees: 6 / 2011 volume: $2 million / 2011 starts: 10
