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

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At the Crest in North Branch NY, I own a few hundred acres of really pretty land with big views.  Like my project in Saugerties NY where I reluctantly acquired 16 building lots in March 2020 right when Covid hit, I bought this land just about the same time, maybe a few months later.  Both share similar attributes - really scary at first, then one of the best decisions I ever made - being flush with land during the Covid gold rush.

I would be in an entirely different place if those reluctant land purchases didn’t happen - because by June-August 2020, it was clear that the Pandemic was going to impact the Catskills real estate market in very positive ways as an outward migration from NYC began, and then increased speed for the next 2 years.  Even though it has slowed, there are still many more buyers in the market than there ever was pre-pandemic, at prices that were hard to achieve prior.

I use the word reluctant for a few reasons - 1, these deal were actually made prior, say beginning of 2020, when the real estate market looked shaky at best.  I think we hav 4 mini-ranches going up, as I hedged my bets on a tightening real estate market.  2, When the pandemic hit, it was very unclear who the winners and losers were going to be - if there were going to be any winners at all.

But owning 16 lots in Saugerties, and another 3 in Olivebridge, and a couple in Kerhonkson turned out to be fortuitous, and allowed me to sell as many houses as I could, since I had the land.  And sell I did.  I think we had 25 houses going up at one time in early 2021.  No wonder Amanda quit, the workload was insane.  It was exhausting.  I definitely worked from pre-dawn, to nightfall for a year plus, making my rounds to the houses on a Saturday or Sunday - hitting 15 at a stretch. Walking through them, making lists, getting aggravated, moving onto the next one.

We bought the Crest from a money manager and NYC apartment building owner, who had built some nice projects in Sullivan County (by built I mean the infrastructure - roads, utilities, subdivision process) and then literally didn’t sell a lick for 14 years.  Seriously nothing.  And that is a testament to how tough the business climate was in SuCo - just downright hard.  Tough, narrow lanes of success.  And more than that, the distraction of a team from NYC trying to get some of these lots sold was real, and diluted their efforts at their main NYC business.  But walking away from $5,000,000 isn’t easy, and acknowledging the mistake is hard.

That is, until the pandemic hit.  One of my personal theories about why the economy grew so robust during and after the pandemic was because a lot of businesses and investors were able to get rid of non-performing assets - and they could do it without losing face.  “It was the pandemic” was a cry you heard all around, when really the Pandemic didn’t have anything to do with EXCEPT force people to get really serious and focused, turn on survival mode, shed bad assets and focus on their core business.  Equipment, software, employees, divisions, land, etc… it all had to go if it was a loser because there was no room for distraction - either capital distraction or personal distraction - as the pandemic impacts roiled through the economy.  It’s true a lot of companies prospered, but it wasn’t easy by any stretch, and it took all your attention.

Also, the stimulus money sort of compensation for these losses - yeah, you might have walked away from $1,000,000 mistake, but the government gave you $800k and your core business is booming.

So a lot of people getting serious about their business survival, and being forced to cut the fat to the bone - made a lot more businesses lean and mean, and focused on the core businesses.  And focus produces results.

I mention all the above because we have 2 more homes going under contract at the Crest.  2 Ranches. Finished homes.  That makes 11 built and sold up there, on a plot of land the previous owner hadn’t sold a thing in over a decade.

But the bottomline for me, for us, is without those pre-pandemic decisions to stockpile some land because of being in the right place, not necessarily at the right time - meaning, embracing an opportunity even though the timing wasn't right - and I've said many times, you don't get to time opportunities, you get to act on them - I stock piled land and then was in a position of strength as the market went crazy.  Little luck, little being in the game, a little willingness to take a risk all added up to not joining the fate of what a lot of businesses suffered - a lot of business prospects, but not able to act on them due to some deficiency - could be land, could be employees, could be money, could be marketing. But in the end for a lot of those companies, it was like being in a life raft in the ocean surrounded by water you can't drink. Frustrating and maddening indeed.

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One of the positive consequences of losing my primary aide de camp is I’m having a lot more interactions with my clients - yes, my clients.  Turns out, I let myself be distanced during the design process, after the deal is done, land cleared, driveway in, foundation in and house framed.  Then, the way it has been structured for a few years is that my project manager/designer took over.  And when I mean ‘took over’, I mean, I never heard from my clients again.

Which was weird - because I never found any emails saying ‘don’t contact Chuck’, but the radio silence was complete, which is weird since someone would at least inadvertent copy me on at least some early emails, but nope, didn’t happen.

So, regardless of why it happened, it happened.  Maybe after 15 years of 24/7 I was happy to work in the background if possible.  Maybe the designer knew I didn’t add anything of value at times (true).  Maybe our unspoken delegation of duties and respective silos worked fine.  Maybe I needed a break.

All true to one degree or another.  But, now that I’m back in a client-facing saddle, I see all the good-will, relation building and general camaraderie that comes with contact.  For the last few years, other than working diligently each day in the background, the times I moved to the front was when there was a problem to be solved, and solving a problem with an arm’s length relationship is not as easy as solving one with a solid, growing, ongoing relationship.

I mean, what we do for our clients is pretty fantastic, so there is definitely something to be said about being more present in the process, and not just the man behind the curtain pulling all the strings.  We hurdle so many problems without even alerting our clients, I’ve said many times we make it too easy, so we lose some of the credit we have earned.  I’ve seen other contractors, pool builders, landscapers just include the clients in every little hiccup that the flabbergasted and frightened client feels so grateful to have this person by their side.  We just take care of and move on, and skip the whole Stockholm syndrome charade of rescuing clients from the precipice of disaster.

So, in the last 3 weeks, I’ve had more phone calls and meetings with clients during their construction project than I’ve had in the last few years cumulatively.   And it’s been great.  I have a lot in common with most of them (definitely more than my ex-29 year old designer), people like my story, and what I’ve built, and I know my stuff.  We talk about kids, and life, and travel and the house.  We build relationships.

A valued client of ours in Stone Ridge and me shoot the shit on occasion - his house will be finished in a few weeks, just 8 months or so after we started it.  It was part of the successful ‘our homes your land’ campaign we launched last year after we ran out of land in County Ulster and couldn’t find anymore to buy.  And he summed it best when he said our home building process is really suited for ‘reasonable logical people’ who know how to collaborate effectively.  And I agreed - and I would add ‘nice’ to that description, because we definitely deliver better results for ‘nice, reasonable, logical people’ than we do for ‘nasty, mean-spirited, entitled, pompous people’ who we avoid at all costs if we can if we can spot it.

Miracles‍

I’ve just been part of a miraculous really unexpected counterintuitive turn of events.  By losing a trusted aide, and inviting the team in to see me pay her a heart-felt thank you and goodbye, I seemed to have inspired my team to new levels of commitment.  Let me explain.

As a boss, you really become a caricature of yourself, a one-dimensional being, hell bent on job site discipline and efficiency and quality - so you are that guy, that is the guy you project, and that is the guy that is received.  There’s not a lot of nuance to barking orders, complaining about quality, bossing people around.  There are different ways to go about it, but usually they don’t entail a whole lot of deviation from stern-ness and an all-business approach, done with variations of the sweet talk and the stick.  Sure you can shoot the shit, or bring some coffees, ask about the wife and kids, but it’s small talk and recognized by most as filler to the real lead up of the conversation - discipline, efficiency and quality.

So, by inviting 40 of my closest colleagues to an event which was actually detrimental to me, celebrating a person who really kind of left all hanging there at the end, and most importantly, giving a truly emotional speech about the difficulty of this 2 decade journey, and what not only this individual meant to me, but what the whole team meant to me - gave me the opportunity to be 3 dimensional, and on this occasion, I killed it.  I resonated.  Which was great at the moment since I was beforehand afraid of embarrassing myself beyond redemption, but turns out, was even better after, as the my words and my willingness to say them sunk in and percolated and marinated with my team, and for a moment right now and hopefully it lasts, they could really see how much I put out there, all the time, for myself, but also for them.

And it could be my imagination, but I surely feel a renewed vigor among the team, a clean up of the daily loose ends, an eye on the ball, a maturity that wasn’t there just a week ago.  So now my job is to not revert into the one dimensional boss that is an easy and comfortable lane for me, but instead, use this moment of connection to strengthen long-term the bonds that hold this top-notch team together.

It’s not the first time that I’ve been part of making lemonade out of what looked like lemons - the only difference this time is I’m the one that brought the sugar.

Another thing I'm seeing is that when a vacuum opens up in a company, especially this one with caring talented employees, people rush to fill it, making talent visible that were cloaked under the sometimes suffocated blanket of the person that left. Just the same old lesson - even success has dangerous status quo ruts you are best to avoid, if you are looking to continually maximize the potential of your business and team.

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We had our exit party for Amanda yesterday, February 3rd, and it was well attended by her colleagues present and past. My team is an extraordinary group of people. This chapter ends, and next begins. Feels good to have done this right.  Now I re-invent, and if the past is any indicator of the future, we end up better.

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Speech I made about her service at Catskill Farms, through tears and unsteady voice.

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"Well, here we are.  Amanda’s last day.  Words I really don’t think most of us would ever hear me utter.  Amanda was part of the succession plan.

I’m sure I’m not the only employer here who has seen a fair share of burned bridges departures - so despite the mixed emotions and emotional roller coaster I’ve been on for the last 2 weeks, I was and am determined to end this in the fairest, most respectful fashion, and that’s why we are here today.  

I invited my son here today to show him how to be graceful in defeat, because make no mistake, no matter the reason for her departure, good or bad, fair or unfair, just or unjust, today is a defeat for me.  I have my mother here because she knows the precarious journey this has been since 2001. This is just another marker along the way.

Amanda was my first successful office hire, after years of trial and error.  So, in some ways, this is like the first time for me even though I’ve hired and fired dozens if not hundreds of people.  I can now agree and attest - the first cut is the deepest.

I also just want to be clear, if I show any emotion, it’s not because Amanda is leaving us, it’s just because I just feel lucky she was here at all.  Any emotion is just just a testament to how hard this business is, and how Amanda was by my side during 7 incredibly good and incredibly difficult years.  I can’t think of a better reason to shed a tear than to honor her and her hard work.   Let’s face it - that’s why we own businesses - so we feel the glory of victory and agony of defeat.  Moments when we really feel, that’s why people like me are self-employed.  I want those highs and lows - I live for them, painful as they may be.

There’s not a person in this room who hasn’t had my back in some significant way over the last decade - some of you in ways that exceed my ability to thank you enough.   Amanda definitely fits into that camp.   We play in the big leagues - it’s no joke, with a lot on the line.  

Amanda’s accomplishments here at Catskill Farms are legendary and vast, and only with time and distance and other jobs will she really understand what she did here.  She created systems for our company and our clients.   She managed, wrangled and motivated dozens of vendors and subcontractors, usually men twice her age.  She dealt with me day in and day out.  She sweet-talked code enforcers.  She coordinated and collaborated with our staff and crew.  She accepted thousands of deliveries.  Picked up the mail everyday.  Remembered to take the trash cans out each week.  Help me with technology.  She juggled dozens of jobs and clients, each with hundreds of details.  She navigated the pandemic while juggling dozens of jobs.  She literally built 100 homes or more with me worth more than $40,000,000.  Her design talents can be seen all over the Hudson Valley.  She’s quite literally one of the most recognized designers in upstate New York.

I love teams. Always have played on teams, love building them, tweaking them, messing around with them, making them better.  Stress testing them. Practicing, experimenting, working hard together, perfecting.  I love being the quarterback, responsible for the whole game and for every win and loss. That’s my lane.

Teams celebrate each other, and I’m here to, and invited you to, help me thank amanda and at the same time make sure everyone in this room knows how much I appreciate the work we do together.  We are simply the best around, and it comes mostly from our hard work and ability to work as a team, and our willingness to constantly learn and improve even after 20 years.  Some days we are the bad news bears, other days we are like the USA hockey team in 1980 winning the gold medal over Russia.  I am really proud of this team standing here. Many of us have worked together for 15 years.  Thats a long time in this industry. The bond we share with each other forged thru trial and fire and experience, is a part of teamwork and team-building that can’t be faked, can’t be shortcutted, can’t be rushed. Its earned, inch by inch and day by day. 

And Amanda was an integral part of this team all through her 20’s.  7 year is a long time to work for someone in this day and age of job hopping. I fished her right out of college.  She May not the quarterback, but definitely an important and pivotal member who played both sides of the ball. No matter how hard I tried it seemed- i just never felt I was giving to her what she was giving to me - even though my accountant disagreed with me.  I guess I’ll always feel that any show of gratitude I’m familiar with just isn’t enough for the effort she put out there on my behalf.

She helped me gain wealth.  Helped me give money away.  Helped me be a good father, steady ex-husband, and just generally helped me improve professionally and personally.  She took some of the pressure off of me.

A testament to her impact is the people here today and the uniform praise she is getting as she leaves. As I wrote this up, and then edited to a much shorter version, I was able to reminiscence and savor my long history with Amanda.  You could argue at times she held this thing together on her own, just on the strength of her will. She kept the pieces together.  She kept my pieces together.  I don’t have a lot of people around me that I can bounce things off of, to help me make good decisions - so Amanda’s mere presence each morning when I arrived, as long as she was here, it was proof I was doing something right.  That will be missed.

Some of the many words that describe her - hardworking, diligent, honest, kind. Modest. Steady.

For those who have attended our Christmas parties, or pool parties or other company gatherings, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard the only thing coming out of my mouth is gratitude towards Amanda, except maybe that one christmas party in 2010 in Yulan which we dont talk about-  Besides helping run this business, she helped me in a million other ways - wrap presents- perfectly of course, helped me run for political office, decorated the office, ran interference, didn’t judge.  She had, and has, apparently limitless energy.  Limitless problem-solving abilities.

This company has grown a lot in the last 8 years that Amanda has been here - the stability and talents she has brought has helped a lot of us here - have helped us stabilize our respective family status, helped us raise kids, put them in the military or college, has helped us build retirement funds, buy houses.  It can’t be overstated the impact of someone willing to come into a leadership position and leave it all on the field, every day for almost a decade.  We’ve all benefited from that work ethic. We all benefitted from her consistency.  She only has one mode - and that is fully committed, to whatever she is doing.  We benefitted from that.  I benefitted from that.  I benefitted from her steadiness, knowing she was always there to lend a hand.

As many of you may know, She came into this company as an intern, with nary a day on a construction site.  Many of you know this story - and as Amanda and I have joked, the story keeps getting better with our embellishments - how her dad saw an article about me in the newspaper when we were building Country Living’s House of the year - and she cold called me out of the blue one summer between college semesters - and I returned her call a few weeks later and said ‘sure, come on in, you won’t last a week but what the hell’.  And at the end of the first week, I was trying to convince her that college was for fools and she should just continue working here.  

But lets face it, that was never going to happen.  Amanda makes good decisions, and those decisions are clear, and rooted in a background and upbringing of strong values and priorities.  And that was always clear to me and rang true.

And this company gave her talents the light of day - whatever she wanted to give, the company drank up, and gave she did, and grow we did.  Doubling in size, then doubling again, then again and again.   Amanda helped me grow as an executive, grow as a boss, watched me make colossal mistakes and win gigantic victories.  She watched me fly high and crash right back down. I think it’s true that no person has spent more waking hours with her than me over the last 8 years, and each one has been an honest hour, of setbacks and achievements, of disappointment and success, and always filled with ‘tomorrow is another day’ approach. We really were a team, who knew how to step in and cover for another’s weakness and maybe more importantly, cover for each other’s mis-steps.  There was no thinking to it - it was just what we did- it was second nature.  There’s no denying this is a tough business, and there is no denying I got a lot of strength knowing Amanda had my back and we could outwork and outsmart any of the problems that dared challenge us.  We did it everyday.  The proof was in the pudding.

She helped me navigate a divorce, get a kid off to school each day from the office, and all too often did the over and above action - I remember one great example where I needed help getting Lucas to school, a little private school in glen spey, and my 6 year old reported it was pajama day - and they show up in the long line of cars dropping off kids and it with horror no one else in their pj’s, so with a 5 year old in the carseat, she makes a high speed U-turn, drives him 5 miles home, goes into a strange home (mine) finds him some regular clothes and drives him back.  She had never been in charge of a kid before.  She pulled it off of course. Her quickness on her feet is uncanny.  Her common sense is uncommon.  

Especially amongst the tradespersons here, there is no one not guilty of taking advantage of her in some way, of being needy and asking for help when you could solve your own problems, giving 90% when you knew she needed and was going to ask for 100%, for bitching and complaining while she fed your families, for not sending her birthday and Christmas gifts to her, and notes of appreciation - when gratitude can be the nutrients that sustain us in this wild world of construction.  We can’t demand it of our clients, who god knows should be offering it up freely and in abundance, but we can demand it of each other.  We all share responsibility for her departure, because we never stopped asking her for help, which she unfailingly gave.   She shielded me from a lot nonsense.   She made us all look like our best selves.  Her hard work helped us all succeed. 

I used to tell a friend of mine, that I just pictured Amanda going home early in her career here, before she got married, and would take her concerns, questions, and problems home with her to the family dinner table each night.  I always pictured her going home each day, sitting around a home-cooked meal with her parents, and discussing her day. And getting good advice, not about how to be needy or feeling like a victim, but giving her advice to stay in the game, to keep working hard, giving her young mind perspective on what it means to have responsibility, what it means to work for a hard charging entrepreneur.  And she would come back the next day ready to tackle whatever challenge came her way.  And understand, for the first 5 years, that meant tackling the the snake of a road over the Eagles Nest each day in her sturdy subaru and nerves of steel. Never late. Never an excuse.  She was never a victim of circumstance or other people.

So I propose here today, we honor Amanda’s legacy at Catskill Farms and all the associated people and families who have benefitted from her efforts and her values, by remembering our goal each day we wake up - to put in a good days work, to take pride in our work, to respect each other, and to go the extra mile.  As the days turn to weeks, turn to months, then years and decades.  We are in this journey together.  Like it or not this, today, is an end of an era an end to a big chapter in my life, …but the journey continues. I think I speak for everyone when I say we will miss you Amanda.

If we can do that, dedicate our best selves to our jobs and the efforts they require, then her efforts here at Catskill Farms will last and linger far into the future, as they most certainly deserve, just like the homes she has built for us and some of you.

Gaining her favor after being in business 12 long years was my first real break, helped me stay in the game long enough to find the success that was always just out of reach, just around the corner, and I’ll cherish it long after I’ve moved on from this business. I feel she was one of my first big breaks, after 12 years in business. I feel blessed and cursed for the exact same reason - having such a wonderful person cross my path.

I end - which I hate to do since that means the real end is even nearer than it was when I started this speech- by paraphrasing Captain Woodrow Call’s epitaph for Josh Deets, who had just died after an altercation with the Apache, in one of my favorite westerns, Lonesome Dove (I kept the original spelling).

“Amanda Krupinich Barton - SERVED WITH ME 8 YEARS. FOUGHT IN OVER 100 ENGAGEMENTS WITH FIESTY CLIENTS. CHERFUL IN ALL WEATHERS, NEVER SHERKED A TASK. SPLENDID BEHAVIOUR.”

To Amanda.

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