Ranch III - Another One Sold

Someone ought to tell our buyers that THERE IS A MAJOR RECESSION HAPPENING, FOLKS. If I sell one more house this year, or get one more pre-construction deal signed, seriously I 'm just going to go in for a check up cause obviously I'm living in one of those non-real imaginary environments you learn about in freshman philosophy, or worse, maybe it's like "A Beautiful Mind' and I actually haven't sold a bunch of homes this year, doubled staff, and introduced a bunch of folks to the country way of doin' it - it's all in my head.

That would actually be a bit of a downer since who's going then, pray tell, is going to pay for the trout for our pond, Lucas' pre-school at the Homestead, or Lisa's whole food fetish?

Mid-Century Ranch III is pretty cool. It really came together for us and the new homeowners, Kat and Greg (I can't write "Kat" without thinking how cool that name is compared to "Chuck" - some people have all the luck). Greg is a partner in a commercial space design firm so has a good idea about what he was hoping to achieve with house, and I hope he's as happy as I am with it, since I think it rocks, big time.

I remember during the dark days of November 2008, when the world was ending and panic was in the air, and Catskill Farms decided to start 3 new spec homes, - and one of them was going to be this Retro Mid Century Ranch idea, which was pretty out there. A niche within a niche. And then young Erin pops up one day from NYC, has never house shopped before, the house is barely begun with like no windows and lots of framing members confusing the layout - so she calls a few days later and says 'she's in'. And history was made - Ranch I was history.

That in no way, however, makes up for what my diet has consisted of since Lisa and Lucas are out of town. Tonight I really hit a low point when I bought frozen pizza from Pecks, the local grocery monopoly. In terms of what Lisa serves this family in terms of nutrition, buying frozen pizza is at the other end of the spectrum - only one step away from the Hungry Man frozen meatloaf and mash potatoes frozen dinner I nearly walked out of the store with.

Our homes are pretty unique and that's really a testament to the wide diversity of clients that we attract. And we strive pretty hard to keep it real - it's pretty difficult to do, to keep these homes unique after 70 of them - it's a fine line, because we aren't introducing new materials - we keep strumming those 3 chords, using our arsenal of tricks-up-our-sleeves, experimenting with products we know, and products that we know won't bust the budget of our value oriented homes. Like the photo above - not a typical home for us, but the harder you look, the more is familiar, from the sliding barn doors, to the simple trims and mouldings, to the mixing of stains and paints.

The stained concrete was a trick we mastered at my offices and now are comfortable exporting it to our homes. We definitely try new things on our own stuff first when we can..

This ranch sits on 5+ acres, on the same ridge as Cottage 20, Cottage 24, Ranch II and Cottage 28. Soon Cottage 31 is commencing and we own one more lot up there as well. So, we have really colonized that 1 mile of dirt road 2 miles outside of Narrowsburg. And we have a diverse crowd up there as well - diverse people in there diverse homes - or "Unique Homes for Unique Homeowners" -

Radiant heat in the floor, spray foam insulation in the walls. This house will be incredibly comfortable.

The whole house is sort of sexy and when I walked into it, completely finished, sparkling and ready for sale - I definitely understood why we can move as much real estate as we do. No one provides as much style and service for the kind of money we are charging. And I swear we keep getting exponentially better.