One has the marketable name, the other has the building projects. Together, they’ve got the Midas touch.

Louis Cappelli and his good friend, Donald Trump are topping off Westchester’s tallest building, Trump Plaza in New Rochelle

Louis Cappelli built the Summit in Valhalla, New Roc City in New Rochelle, City Center in White Plains.

He’s transformed Westchester’s ugliest downtowns by partnering with Donald Trump

Louis Cappelli has developments in New Rochelle, Ossining, Yorktown, Yonkers, and Stamford, Connecticut

In 1984, Louis Cappelli first made a splash in the world of real-estate development by spending $500,000 on 102 acres of middle-of-nowhere land in Valhalla.

Louis Cappelli kicked off construction on what would become the Summit Westchester, a 1.3-million-square-foot corporate complex that cost $130 million and later won the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for excellence.

Now, 22 years later, the Summit is fully leased and owned by Reckson Associates Realty Corp., a real-estate investment trust that, in 1999, purchased the property along with Mount Pleasant Corporate Center in Valhalla and Courthouse Square in White Plains, for $183 million.

Throughout much of the 1990s, talk of a New Rochelle revival came and went.

In 1996, a pair of developers, Ken Narva and Robert Greene, agreed to build a downtown shopping/entertainment center on the site of the old New Rochelle Mall.and Louis Cappelli was brought in as a partner.

If the Summit Westchester placed Cappelli onto the stage, New Roc lifted him to Placido Domingo-like status.

“Louis has changed the face of New Rochelle,” says Noam Bramson, the city’s current mayor.

Although it might be named Trump Tower, friends of Cappelli insist Trump did little except lend his name to the project, and even Trump declared, “this remains Lou’s baby, his job.”

But Trump’s biggest contribution to the project, all agree, was his famous name and his even more legendary salesmanship. “My name has become a brand that is synonymous with the finest product available,” he explains.

Say what you will about Trump; attaching his name to the tower did make a critical difference

Today, Trump and Cappelli are busily plunging into other Westchester development projects. Trump Plaza, in New Rochelle, recently topped out at 39 stories, making it the county’s tallest building for a brief moment (it was almost immediately eclipsed by Cappelli’s even taller, 44-story Renaissance Square/Ritz-Carlton project in White Plains)