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

The other week Builder Magazine, one of my favorite industry rags, called on us to participate in their national seminar on internet marketing, and social media for small builders in particular. We rocked it, and KKPR Marketing and PR convinced the local media world to pick up the story - they are making it look pretty easy these day. Check it NY House's coverage of the event- I thought the title was a little over the top but hey, who am I. See the link below. Petersheim's Once Again the Man!

Barn House IV commences, located with our other homes up above Lucky Lake, outside of Narrowsburg, NY. Pictures of the footings being stripped above. This house will come with this shack that was on the property when I bought it. Not sure if I will convert it into a tool shed, or a little sleeping shed, or maybe a bunk house, or a writers shed, or a piano shed or whatever. You could hang a sign out front - 'When the Shack is a rockin', don't come a knockin'".

Cottage 35 is just about finished and now that the buds of the impending leaves are beginning, this house will really come into it's own. Few more interior details and we should be good to go. It's for sale and will be a good one to have in inventory over the Spring and possibly the summer.

The circle driveway really brings this one home for me.

The old Shack, with it's little woodstove, that'll heat the whole house. Red Metal roofing panels for the firestop and local bluestone for the hearth.

And the one bedroom Mid-Century Ranch on 4 acres that borders 1200 acres is coming along nicely. Should be hot, not in a Reese Witherspoon way, but in a young porn star way.

I think I mentioned the Car Port.

And Heather's Micro Cottage 4 coming around the corner. I think we started it like 3 weeks ago and now we are ready for insulation.

And Norm the excavator and Mike the excavator are busy putting in long windy drives for Cottage 36 on 15 acres and Farm 11 on 12 acres. Do you know there are 42,000 sq ft to an acre and 45,000 sq ft to a football field so an acre is just about a football field. Interesting, not?

I'm an early riser, and lately even more so, rolling out of bed ready to rock and roll around 4am. I should've really been a dairy farmer. So, it's not like I'm waking up tired, I'm ready to rock, so I have been getting up and reading some online papers, ready for the slightest crack in the night, so I can take Jake on a two mile jog interrupted continuously by the pee and poop needs of Jake, although when you think about it, it's awfully suspicious that he can hold it all day, but go for a little run and he has to go like 16 times. Well, today I saddled up and hit the road around 5 and just as I was getting started I see some frickin' person off in the distance with a bright orange hat and gloves - not a typical sight on lonely Crawford Road. So I give him a wave and Jake gives him a ridiculous non-threatening growl and we continue into the fresh dry morning towards Mail Road. We hit, rotate and return back only to run into this guy again, and he's bending over picking up trash off the side of the road. Being fully invested in Sullivan, having someone pick up litter, alone, on the side of the road, at 5am, really worked for me, so I stopped and chatted and he said he covers 4 miles of road and walks it once a week picking up litter. That's a quiet hero to me. And we have places like the NACL experimental theater, we have Chris and Matt donating money to the local farmers market to keep it viable and growing, we have the 85 acre farm that serves as education center for hundreds of local kids, we have the amazing Foodstock each year, and the Bob Dylan music marathon at the hydropowered community radio station and a million other efforts that make this place spin. It's not gaudy, but it's real. And I'll take real any day of the week.

Hangin with Kool & the Gang, early morning like - "What you gonna do? You want to get down? Tell me what you gonna do? Do you want to get down? What you gonna do? You want to get down? What you gonna do? You want to get down? - Tell me. Get down on it get down on it" Some groovy tunage for our samba like advance through the construction of a few homes. Below is Ranch V, another Mid-Century experiment. They've been big hits - one to Cheri, one to Erin, one to Tony and Laurie, and one to Kat and Gregg. This one is on the small side - about 720 sq ft, one bedroom, 4+ acres and borders 1200 acres of usable State land. That's right - borders 1200 acres of usable State land.

We are keeping it fresh and real over at Yankee Lake where the guys are kicking like it's some Olympic sport with 7 virgins waiting as a prize. I mean, jesus, we've only been there 6 weeks and we demo'ed the damn thing, rebuilt literally every inch, slapped up 16 sq of siding, roofed it, installed the windows and doors and now we are roughing her in for the plumbing, heating, electric and security phase. It's impressive, even to me, who is typically not easily impressed.

Kevin the architect just reinvented this whole house from a flow and usability vantage.

It's a lake front piece, at Yankee Lake, in the Town of Mamakating.

From the master bedroom.

That's Rich, Al and James take a good look before getting started. Very atypically, this house came with 7 ft ceilings and through some miracle twist of fate, we were able to lift them up to 9'. Usually, if you got low ceilings, you are stuck with low ceilings - that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

And then our newest Micro Cottage 4, which wasn't even here 8 days ago. Sort of, the 'now you don't see it, now you do' play on phraseology.

And then at my house Norm's tooling around in his big equipment while Lisa is away. Fixing the pond spillway which blew out because of all the rain, and a bunch of other little projects.

"How you gonna do it if you really don't want to dance By standing on the wall? Get your back up off the wall tell me. How you gonna do it if you really don't want to dance By standing on the wall. Get your back up off the wall 'Cause I heard all the people sayin': Get down on it come on and Get down on it - if you really want it Get down on it - you gotta feel it." (not a bad post of 4:48am). Coming up on 500 blog posts since I started.