Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

Our houses are warm. They are warm because we insulate the heck out of them, seal up any penetrations, and install a thoroughly efficient heating system. While we get a lot of small requests and comments, how warm our houses are in the depth of winter is always a compliment.

Here are some of the options our homeowners have -

Whenever we need to cut down a tree, we chop up the wood and leave it for the new homeowners to enjoy.

A woodstove is a great way to supplement the heat of a house - burning longer, hotter and more efficiently than a fireplace. This is a vintage modern (circa 1940) woodstove at our house in Chapin Estate.

Fireplace ain't a bad way to go either - especially when resparking that romantic flame.

Old school radiators, manufactored in Canada and shipped down here (the shipping costs as much as the radiators).

Lisa and I enjoy the winters as much as the summers - snuggled up by the fire, trying to make it through some Russian literature, not stressing about the garden, the grass or anything else on the 'honey do' list.

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Wow - who would know that a major real estate and mortgage crisis is on hand? Saturday was a good day for Catskill Farms, signing up a gentleman for our first mini-house at $195k, and most likely signing up Anna and Pablo for a cottage on 5 acres (we sold all our land so we are looking for more). If you lost count, CF now has a 5 house waiting list, which should give some comfort to the entire Catskill Farms family. It's an enviable position for us all - owning real value, - that appreciates ahead of the market and depreciates behind it - in front of the fire, drink in hand - a toast to good long-term decisions the entire family has made. When the market was overheated, realtors were arrogant, tradesmen non-committal, and the enBusy Saturday and Market Profiletire sales process bogged down by too much activity. Now, I get 5 calls a week from people looking for work (good people), realtors are bombarding us with listings to buy, land is becoming more reasonably priced. At the moment, CF is negotiating to buy a bus garage in eldred, where we would hope to build storage units and build out the large garage into lofty open office space, so small businesses have a place to go when they out grow the garage and basement. We are also actively looking and buying small and large parcels of land (we are still a small business so large overpriced parcels are still out of our reach). We hope to buy the entire price slide down, so we can continue to offer affordable getaways at all price points.

Polaroid snapshot taken by Mrs Vaughn. Mrs. Vaughn was the woman who I bought the land from in Barryville/Eldred and built 9 homes, - Farm #7, Barn #1, Modern #1, Arts & Crafts #1, Farm #8, Cottage #1, Cottage #2, and Cottage #3. This photo was taken when I closed on the land. Mrs Vaughn is over 90 and is a widower for the past 20 yrs when her husband Vincent passed away. They bought the 55 acres I eventually purchased from them in 1968. The Vaughns were from Eastern Europe and I believe their families had land taken from then during WWII, so they took their ownership seriously.

A lot of people offered Mrs Vaughn good money for this land over the years - and her retort was always along the lines of 'he's got enough money', 'he's a criminal', 'you own enough land', until one day I found out about the land through her 95 yr old boyfriend, and eventually agreed to buy it from her. Note my Walmart sweatshirt - a thoughtful Christmas present from my step-mother.

Back in the old days, these shingles would have had to be humped, bundle by bundle, up a ladder. In this case 68 trips up and down the ladder - I don't know if you ever lifted a bundle of shingles - but they ain't light, and definitely don't get lighter with each bundle trip.

In construction, many things - like siding, roofing, etc..., are measured in squares - a square is 100 sq ft, or a 10 x10 area. So this roof has 23 square of roof, or 2300 sq ft. 3 bundles of shingles make 1 sq, so for this job we needed 69 bundles.

These boys from across the Delaware River (PA) use rock-climbing harnesses and straps on steep roof pitches like this. It's a good idea, allowing more movement and flexibility than other safety processes.