When it came to gearing up his family’s rooftop terrace on the Upper East Side, Lou Switzer, 67, aimed to go simple. “I wanted a standard outdoor barb’, a grill,” says the CEO of the Switzer Group, an interior architecture firm. “My wife wanted all the other stuff. I tried to hold her back.”

He failed gloriously. This holiday weekend, he and his better half, Gina Abandonato Switzer, will enjoy cooking on their feature-packed Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, which costs around $20,000.

“We like fine things,” says Gina (left), 49. “I did the research and found the best . . . It’s got two grills in one, so I can cook fish on one side and get a nice filet mignon crust on the other. Plus I have a rotisserie inside and a special compartment for hickory chips,”

She is so into her grill that even New York blizzards can’t keep her away. “When we have deep snow, my kids go up there and cut a path for me.”

Bill Ryder, 60, an attorney living in Park Slope, Brooklyn, goes whole hog with a $450 La Caja China, a 2-by-4-foot collapsible box that originated in Cuba.

“The night before cooking, I carry a whole pig upstairs to our bathroom,” he says, “I set it down in the tub, surround the thing with ice and marinate it in a mix of garlic, orange juice, peppers and salt. Next morning, I carry it back down, lay the pig in the roaster, put charcoal on top of a metal cover. And there’s dinner in four hours.”

He typically cooks an 80-pound pig, which easily feeds 75 friends and neighbors.

“Savvy eaters beeline for cheeks and loins; dog owners grab ears for their pets to chew on,” he says.

“We’re a little strange, but we like to roast and grill. Life is good when you’re cooking pigs in Brooklyn.”

For nearly two decades, “Alabama” Joe Hudson, 59, has been taking matters into his own hands, welding barbecues from 55-gallon oil drums.

He sells as many as 75 per year for as much as $3,500. “The metal holds heat well, the grill lasts, and it burns wood or charcoal,” he says. “It’s way better than a Chinese import.”

He also uses them to feed the neighborhood. Every Saturday at the crossroads of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy, Brownsville and East New York neighborhoods, he and his buddy James “Jazzy” Spencer take a creation of his he calls the Tow Behind to the streets. The giant grill hitches to the back of his car for easy transport and can hold 16 racks of ribs and 10 chickens. The two men use it to cook up a free feast, no matter what the weather.

“We’ve been out there in rain, snow, subzero temperatures,” says Hudson, who started the weekly cookouts last October. “Folks grab ribs, walk to the corner and dance as they eat.”

After hitting midlife-crisis age, eight years ago, Jeffrey Deutsch, a 59-year-old insurance broker, didn’t buy a Ferrari, he bought a Ferrari of a grill. The Ridgewood, NJ, resident’s $30,000 custom grill by Texas Pit Crafters is packed with features.

It has a gas grill for quick dinners, a second grill for wood or charcoal that doubles as a smoker, and an infrared burner that heats to 1,200 degrees so he can quickly sear a tuna steak while keeping it perfectly raw on the inside.

Says Deutsch: “Considering my stage in life -— married with two teenage boys — this suits me better than an Italian sports car with a young blonde.”