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

Catskill Farms is a 9/11 story, as many of you know.  Working in Soho on the new Scholastic building on Prince, eating breakfast on the 11th floor with a clean shot of the planes hitting the towers, somehow getting a hold of my girlfriend although most cell lines were overloaded, gathering at bars to huddle and think, walking home to Berkeley Place in Brooklyn, where cars and stoops were covered with ash.  Making my way down to help out one day.   Losing my job.  Losing my lease.

Buying a $25k 300 sq ft house without plumbing or heat (or siding, etc…)  ‘upstate’ with a credit card check that arrived in the mail shortly thereafter.  Adopting a stray cat and stray dog, both that got pregnant and having 5 puppies and 7 kittens running around – surely a headline if the SPCA would have caught wind.  No car.

And starting Catskill Farms with no money, shallow experience, no connections, no talented labor supply and hardly a relationship.  With a simple idea that we still work at today – that buying upstate didn’t/doesn’t have to be a compromise, or a 2nd choice, and there was no reason that smart people wouldn’t buy good houses if given the chance.

That was 20 years ago.  And 200 homes. And we remarkably still remain far from perfect, even with our daily effort to keep improving.

Borrowing from Winston Churchill – “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

On behalf of my entire team, I would like to thank you each and every one of you who has joined us in this journey.  My biggest regret of this entire thing of ours is that I’m too busy introducing new people the Farm that I don’t get to know better all the amazing people we’ve done business with.  Maybe that’s the next chapter.

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I sign and oversee $1,000,000 of construction projects each month, month after month, year after year.  For 20 years.  Alls sorts of contracts - surveys, septics, construction, sales, purchases, landscaping.  Even with that volume, I've never seen the inside of a courtroom and most disputes and disagreements can be resolved.

Dead tree, week 2.

So my unfortunate entanglement with John Pell Tree Service of Audubon sticks out for it's unusualness if nothing else.  A $60,000 landscape project where most things died within a month of plantings, 3000 sq ft of yard never grew, 200 sq ft of sod looked bad when planted and died soon after.  Weeds grew so resiliently through our new landscape beds and had root balls the size of softballs.   A big tree died, and 12 rosebud trees (or whatever you call them) looked quite distressed very quickly.

So you can imagine my surprise when John Pell said it was my fault.  And that, frankly, he doesn't warranty his work, and never has, and never will.  And by the way, where's the $5k out of $65k that you owe me?

The idea that this was supposed to be the final hurrah of a $500k reconstruction of a community hall, and instead turned into a disappointing - to say the least- dying, weed strewn apocalypse.  Heart-breaking is not too strong a word.

So old Johnny Pell of Pell Tree Service of Phoenixville PA and Audubon PA quickly learned that this isn't our first rodeo with crappy subcontractors and we have a few tools in our tool bag.

So after some kicking and screaming and crying and being just a pompous self-important asshole, John Pell was smart enough to let his capable office staff take over and figure out a compromise, which in the end, consisted of coming back and spending 60 man/hours improving what to any casual observer was a landscape in distress, overgrown with weeds, trees dying.   And they did a great job, and spruced things up, tidied things up, and did right by me.

So I was surprised, but not really, on thursday, after the final check had cleared that I get an email from John Pell of Pell Landscaping and Pell Tree Service telling me that everything I'm doing on the property is wrong, and fuck you, and he won't ever come back on the property, and don't even dare write him back.

Now, remember, I'm happy at this point.  Satisfied at this point.

So, my point in writing this, is construction is tough, and there is always potential for problems. And how you solve those problems define you not just as a business but also as a person.    And d John Pell's 'I'm the smartest, you're a dumbass' approach to stressful problem remediation just makes me shout 'STAY AWAY FROM THIS GUY'.   There are so many other options of people who actually respect their clients, respect their concerns, and respect their goals and even their fears.

I cannot say loud enough that this guy does not deserve your business.  Every single thing he touched was dying or never grew.



Dead Sod, week 3.

Weeds, weeds, weeds.

Rosebud trees that look beyond sickly.  Week 4.

Grass that never grew a blade.

I'm a big reader - always have been.  Newspapers, magazines, onlines, and books, but recently the book thing has been less than fruitful.  Several started and not finished which is very unlike me since just out of principle I like to finish what I start.

I stumbled onto Shoe Dog, by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, and finally got reading mono back. Written in 2016, it tracks the history of Nike (greek for goddess of victory.  Nike was almost named 'Dimension Six'.

He writes " We wanted, as all great businesses do, to create, to contribute and we dared to say so aloud.  When you make something, when you improve something, when you deliver something, when you add some new thing or service to the lives of strangers, making them happier, or healthier, or safer or better, and when you do it all crisply, and efficiently, smartly, the way everything should be done but seldom is - you're participating more fully in the whole grand human drama.  More than simply alive, you're helping others to live more fully, and if that's business, all right, call me a businessman.  Maybe it will grow on me."

There is little doubt Catskill Farms does what he describes, has been doing it for 20 years, and continues to improve every day.  In the end, I think that's what makes of seemingly invincible - we keep getting better, leveraging each lesson from each day into a better process and product.  Running a large business with the dexterity of a small entrepreneurial shop.  Our logo could simply be 'We improve lives'.

We got a lot of real estate stuff going on - with 4 homes going up in Stone Ridge near Kingston (all reserved), 4 homes going up in Kerhonkson (2 reserved), 2 going up in Bethel (2 reserved), 2 going up in Narrowsburg (2 reserved), buy 4 building lots in the Beechwoods, 1 in Olivebridge, 2 in Saugerties and looking at another 25 in Saugerties.

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I get around.  

In the course of any given week, I do a lot of traveling around the Hudson Valley and beyond.

Just this morning I was in Bethel reviewing Ranch 33 and Barn 31 before heading out to Narrowsburg in Southwestern Sullivan County to check out 2 houses, now in contract, that will be selling shortly.

Been wet again this year, with postponed little league games every week, tough construction weather, and just a general malaise about the whole thing.  Upside has been a series of really fine weekends for sure.

Barn 28, selling for a little under $400k to an owner of Italian descent,

And Ranch 34, selling for just over $300k, to owners of Indian descent.

Since I was in the area, I road up the small lane on which my first 3 houses reside, Farm 1...

Farm 2 and

Farm 3.

There was a crazy windstorm that blew through last spring (2018) and while dozens of trees were blown over, the houses stood up well against the gale force winds.