But first, the real news: Ronald Chester keeps his job.

Chester runs the building's two manual elevators, the only non-automatic lifts still in use in the Triangle.

The investors, a group of Duke University grads, plan to convert one of the elevators to the self-serve kind, but the other will remain the way it has been for 75 years.

Chester, 54, has worked those buttonless elevators for the past decade, yanking closed heavy doors and accordion grates before tugging levers that lift tenants eight stories into the sky. He's the Triangle's last elevator operator.

His new bosses, who paid $3.3 million for the building at 331 N. Main St., want to plough $1.6 million more into sprucing up the art deco landmark.

They want to add a sprinkler system, conference room, basement storage, 24-hour building access with a security code, wireless Internet and restrooms on each level of the 25,000-square-foot building.

And they need to modernize that elevator. The way it works now, tenants have an operator only from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays, said Brad Wiese, president of Maverick Partners, who represented buyer CREH Snow LLC in the deal.

"After 5:30, you're hiking up and down the stairs," he said. "It's not real practical. But we certainly recognize the historic nature."

And keeping the old charm means keeping Chester, too.

"If it weren't for him, that building would have fallen down," Wiese said. "Ron has taken care of everything in that building. He's going to stay involved with this building as long as he wants to."

Maverick will manage the building for the new owner, a group formed by Carey Greene and former Duke football players Gavin Gray and Travis Pearson.

Refinishing is still to come for the seventh-floor penthouse, which was gutted by a fire last July. The previous owners restored the penthouse to a shell before the sale closed, Weise said.

The rest of the building sustained only minor fire-related damage, Weise said, mostly from water.

"That building is a big concrete block," he said. Even the penthouse roof came through intact.

The building was fully leased when it went under contract for sale, he said, but the new owners have not been actively renewing leases. The extensive renovations they plan would be an inconvenience for tenants.

Once it is fixed up, Weise said, it will be an ideal property for businesses needing small office spaces.

The building is now about half leased. The new owners hope the renovations will lure tenants looking for 250- to 500-square-foot spaces -- tiny compared with typical office offerings.

"It's either work out of your home or lease 1,000 feet," Wiese says. "There's nowhere else to go if you're a one- or two-person operation," he said.

Once they update the elevator, Chester will act more as a superintendent, helping tenants with minor maintenance problems and the like. His role could be expanded if the investors decide to expand their portfolio.

But until then, he'll help tenants and contractors get up and down. And he'll harbor important wisdom: "Until I show them how to use it," he says, "they ain't going to know how to use the elevator."