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

Here's part of the Barryville Chamber of Commerce at the ribbon cutting of Bryce and Thom's new store named, appropriately enough, REGION. They carry local one-of-kind type useful items like a beer making kit, bluestone cutting stone, pickled stuff and lot of other good and unique stuff. I think Bryce was a pretty fancy luxury retailer before he built a house with us, caught the fever and now is up here more or less full-time. Congrats.

Micro Cottage 4 is all finished up and turned over the Heather and her son. Big times planned for this small home that lives real large.

It's really one of those 'good things come in small packages' types of things - cedar shake siding, screened porch, 2 cool screen doors, wood burning fireplace, stone chimney chase, back patio, 2 bedroom, etc...

I'm sure there will be many a grand entrances through this door.

And the sunlight striking the house melodiously. (trying to be over the top, fyi.)

Nice clean design and aesthetic.

I think we started this house in April or so.

And a pic from our trip to Yosemite the other month. I think this was on top of El Capitan.

Nice work Heather. it's one of those dreamy little houses I think will bring you lots of joy and memories (christ, who put something in my drink this morning? I need to go yell at someone or write an uncalled-for mean email and snap out of it!)

We do a lot of new construction, but we also do a fair amount of renovations and construction for hire. Old farmsteads, old lake houses, or like we did last year for the Blog Cabin TV show, we reinvented a house that wasn't super old. Here, Scott and Erica took a badly pieced together over the years lake house, stripped it to the bones, added here, tucked there, and 4 months later a brand new house in every sense of the word. Brand new bones, brand new mechanicals and plumbing, brand new electric, windows, insulation, baths, etc...

I mean we tore that thing apart and it was one of those homes that everything we discovered was not up to par and had to be reinforced, sistered, strengthened, etc... Very challenging.

So we took a pretty lousy floor plan, and took very lousy views of the lake and just reinvented the house entirely. And it turned out great.

Below are some photos prior to getting started.

And then a sampling of the new style, the new bath, -

Vs. the old hallway (great pic of what we were dealing with. This was the lake view side for Chris-sakes).

All in all, not bad for 4 months of work, through a very tricky house and a very tricky couple of months of weather - magnified by the cold wind whipping off the lake.

Just so you know - I'm diving head first into this stock market. Those who bought in in the panic of 2008 are still way up even with the recent declines. We have a lot of great clients and they do a wide range of pretty great things, including spending a lot of money locally and in a very impactful way, helping drive the economy of our local towns. Some businesses 'get it' and try to cater and attract these residents, and other businesses just miss the ball entirely. Barryville NY is becoming a hip little spot with some great new stores (adding to some great existing stores). I love micro-economics - where one venture feeds another venture and inspires another venture that feeds the other venture that eventually becomes self-perpetuating and self-generating. Our good friends and clients Bryce and Thom (Cottage 17) have opened a little store in a rehabbed corner building in Barryville, selling regional products (hence its name, REGION). And then they stock stuff from around the area including homemade goods from Jeanne (Cottage 14), who also supplies the local tavern of choice (Baker's Tap Room) with Cakes.

What's nice about our clients when they open a business or launch a venture, they typically do it very well, with the right look and feel, pricing, product, etc...

And I was over at Benoist's house the other day having a cocktail and conversing with some of his friends from up the road in Eldred. We built his house back in 2005.

And now for the stuff under production - Not messing around in Saugerties with Cottage 37. We are striking a very exciting deal with Village Green Real Estate, which is owned by Coldwell Banker, which is partnered with Corcoran. Hopefully we can put together a dynamic marketing team that we never were able to do over here in Sullivan where everyone wanted our money but no one wanted to invest in serious marketing.

I would bet I spend more per month than most sullivan county real estate firms spend per year. Farm 17 going up. You know we build fast when the houses go up faster than I can blog about them.

I had Lucas over in the area over the weekend, and showed him around the job sites. He likes big tractors.

And Farm 11 really seeing some serious action - siding, fireplace, interior wall coverings, interior floors, etc....

It's like a ballet its so well orchestrated.

This 1950 sq ft 4 bedroom home on 12 acres is pretty much the cat's meow.

And Cottage 36 - which Matthew wants to call Cabin 1, but I'm just not starting over and if he wants Cabin 1 he'll need to over to Chapin Estate and pay another $200k. (Just joking MM - we can informally call it anything you want, just don't call me late for dinner).

Siding, fireplace, septic, well, interior finishes...

We invest more than $400k a month into these little towns, supporting a wide range of small businesses, allowing many of them to really not just survive but actually prosper. We have been an economic catalyst for 9 years.

New use of salvaged wood above the fireplace - I think it looks pretty sharp. The TV gets mounted as well.

And Mid Century 5 is just about finished, with stone pillars at the carport.

This dandy is for sale for $210k.

And Micro-Cottage 4, getting ready to sale in a week.

All for now. Got to go see how much less Lucas' college fund has in it.

I was up with Lucas in Saugerties over the weekend and we did a bunch of stuff, like go to the Ulster County Fair, and then the Woodstock Animal Sanctuary, which was an odd place of randomly rescued pigs, goats, turkeys and chickens. One chicken came over and unexpectedly pecked Lucas and then he went around for two days saying the 'chicken got him' (saying it over and over and over). A funny guy picked up a story about us and his take on our business and our PR is pretty good. I don't know about all that money he thinks we are raking in, but it's good nevertheless and cool he thought we had something interesting enough to post about. Realty Biz News So I rented a cabin upstate so I had a home base while we are building a few houses up there. It's sort of like starting over, since when I started in Sullivan County my first abode was a tiny little modest thing too. This time, however, the modesty is more or less by choice - back then it was because I didn't have a pot to piss in, let alone much discretion in my housing - I bought that first Sullivan County house for $23,000, advanced from a credit card.

It's not easy furnishing a house, buying mattresses, going to the Target, the grocery store, etc... with a 2 1/2 yr old in tow. I mean, talk about doubling the effort. "I'm thirsty', "I'm hungry', "I'm tired", "I want my mommy", "toys, toys, Lightning McQueen" - and that's just my needs - Lucas has a whole set of his own. I got a little carried away at Target and Lucas got the short end of the stick, getting crammed between his new race track and the toilet paper - some moms were giving me the evil eye dirty look thing but I gave it right back to them, commented on their big butts and double chins and mini-vans, and continued doing my thing.

The next day we had to come back for more.

It was pretty hilarious shopping for the cabin, because this house will not just be my headquarters, but it will also serve as sleeping and lounging quarters for my subs and trades and employees. So I was buying coffee and toilet paper and plates and silver ware and sugar and paper towels and soap, beer and soda, mattresses and linens. I caught myself more than once trying to picture what type of beer Rich the plumber would like, or how soft of toilet tissue do these guys really need, or imagining everyone smelling like Irish Spring, or cheaping out on the beer. Best was the mattress and linen selection - 'this 100 count sheet will do just fine, as will that $60 mattress' was the refrain heard from within my head most frequently. Then off to the 150th Ulster County Fair. This was Lucas' first time at a fair so after we left the livestock we stumbled onto the neon lights of the rides. Here is a picture of him getting close to his co-rider - this was like one spin before he started crying and wanting to exit asap.

And this ice cream cone took him way way up, and left him perched for a really big fall, which happened in the indoor trampoline, when he just shut down and laid in the middle of a bunch of kids jumping - I had to go in and get him.

Some big swine at the Fair. I saw like 40 pigs over the weekend and they were always just laying around sleeping.

And Lucas at my Cabin with his train.

Then, a few weeks earlier, we went to Paws and Claws, some almost-ghetto zoo in the Poconos, the type of place PETA is lurking around every corner waiting for a miscue. But they had everything - snakes, giraffes, tigers, lions, foxes, camels - This snake was huge -

And this camel was really dry and humorless. Guess he doesn't look in the mirror much.

all for now. just landed a job to build a homestead type of thing - really about 5 of our houses in one, so that's never a bad thing.