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

I'm not one to count my chickens before they hatch, but it appears Catskill Farms will be welcoming 3 new families to our waiting list, -houses to start in late spring and early summer. I guess the trepidation smothering the economy isn't so great to diminish that country livin' wishin'. I know it's not for me, - I'm buying anything I can get my hands on (and convince the local bank to finance). Spring and Summer and fall schedule - Cottage 7 starting yesterday. Clearing the woods and installing the driveway. Footings on Tuesday. Cottage 8 starting tomorrow. Cottage 9 is being expanded by 500 sq ft, and we are starting that in late April. Cottage 12 is being eyed up pretty closely, and maybe start that one in April or May if everything comes together. Cottage 14 got a deal binding for a late summer start. Lisa and I are building a house - the official Catskill Farm - our final resting place - I can hear the gallery heckling now, but this is a promise. Gavin and Emily are starting to focus on their new home in the woods and applying to get their ornery children in the local Montessori school. There you have it- the worst housing market since the Great Depression is keeping us very busy. The local Homestead Montessori School in Glen Spey is quite the place - been open since 1973, on 85 acres, where the kids garden, play, draw, plant, play soccer, build things, tend to animals and seem to have a pretty good all around time. We also have a few closings coming up - Mini House Cottage 5, Farm 9, Cottage 6 and Cottage 3 all in March and April. Just makes one wonder how often wholly misleading information barrages pervert our daily decision making. Not to beat our own drum (thump thump) but the value of our homes has never been more evident now that smart buyers are dilgently weighing lots of housing options and choosing us.

Nobody said construction was for the weak - and last week proved the point pretty succinctly (I just want to put it out there that this blog has no spell ck). Besides being butt ass cold, a couple of snow storms blew through.

So there was ice ice ice everywhere - thick ice on the driveways, steps, porches, walkways, etc... and this was the final week of construction at Farmhouse #9, meaning the radiators were being delivered, the clawfoot tubs were being delivered, and lots of other delicate and expensive items.

Not only did all these assorted vehicles need to make it the 1/4 mile up the private lane/driveway to the house, but we then had to carry these items over icebergs to get them in the house.

For example, here's the smiley clawfoot tub delivery guy unloading the 500 lb clawfoot tub. From here we have to uncrate it (4000 screws per inch protecting the tub), and with six men, coordinate our journey across the ice, up the porch steps, into the house, up the stairs, cattywhompass into the master bedroom, and finally remove the door of the master bath to get it inside.

From here we had to cut open the ceiling of the downstairs pantry so the plumbers could get behind the tub to put it together.

Happy Bathing.

This picture of the living room of Farmhouse #9 in Barryville NY shows us unpacking and organizing all the faucets, sinks, toilets, etc... that will go into the house.

And here's Juan and JJ carrying in a 400 lb brand spanking new old school radiator.

Construction is a hardball sport - and the men who work for us know that everyday brings a test of mind over matter, of man over nature.

The men you see pictured in our various photographs are the creme of the crop, having made cut after cut as I have culled the ranks, hired, fired, and rearranged the business, always looking for that perfect alchemy of talent, loyalty, hardwork and attitude. Most people don't make it, and many times, after they see how hard we work, have no desire to try to make it.

This hard driving slave like mentality benefits one person - our customer. And when you are building custom designed and crafted pieces of art for under $400,000, there is no room for inefficiency, waste, duplication or laziness.

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Like my mom said, sometimes I need to 'get off my high horse', and no better way for that to happen than to drive my car off the road into a snow bank.

Here is Mike Fox, from Fox's Service station in White Lake NY to the rescue. Mike runs the local service station up the road with his wife, and he has saved us a few times - when I ran out of gas in my pickup, when I ran out of gas in my dumptruck, when I didn't have a spare tire and got a nail in my tire, when I lost my tire jack, etc...

Every once in a while the NY Times or Wall Street Journal or New Old House or Country Living rings us up on the office phone about some story ideas they have. I must not be a good interview because we never end up in print, although I always notice stories a few months later about the exact topics we were talking about, informed by ideas and thoughts I could have sworn were mine - Seeing the article in the NY Times about new old houses quoting a 'designer' who never built one, or House Beautiful writing an article taken right from our website, or New Old House doing a story on country cottages, etc... ad nauseum. It's kind of irritating, but, as they say, it's lonely at the top (this is joke I would write 'ha ha' but I hate that narrative joke indicator - I guess I could use the ' :) ', but that might be worse). In the end, it's not important, since the attention to business building and the fundamentals of customer service have enabled us to prosper in the good times, and seemingly accelerate in the down times. Anyway, today I had a long conversation with Builder magazine, which is a trade magazine along the lines the This Old House, but geared more to the industry vet, than the homeowner. It was a great conversation and actually quite fun to talk to someone with a true design and construction background, as opposed to the editors of some of these publications that made their mark smartly arranging pillows. I was explaining what is separating us from the crowd presently, and I was going on and on about a lot of things, when we reduced it to what it is - value. It's easy to see - 5 acres of land, a house, a curvy sexy driveway of a couple of hundred feet, underground electric from the street to the house, a house full of wood, style, accents and detail, a well, a septic, as well as all the costs associated with financing and holding a house (gas, electric, propane, taxes, interest) for under $325k. I'm no MC Hammer (note the hammer) - but- You Can't Touch This.