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

It's been a wintry week up here with schools closed twice and delayed 2 hours once. Icy rainy mix one day, then a real soft fluffy snow Thursday night. It's the 2nd time in as many weeks where we had a closing scheduled and then a snow storm sneaks up and tempts the hand of fate. Thing about closings is that they take a lot of coordination among a lot of people. Typically there is a mortgage lock rate deadline breathing down everyone's neck, then we have to get the Certificate of Occupancy, send it off to the buyer's bank, then wait for the bank to give us the Clear to Close, meaning the 27 documents necessary to complete the loan are in order. Then my attorney, the buyers, the buyer's attorney, the bank, the title company and I'm probably forgetting someone - everyone needs to get on everyone's schedule, which isn't so easy considering the massive amounts of refinancings the banks are processing. So to have a snow storm sneak up and upset these nicely made plans sort of sucks, not to mention I'm out my couple of hundred grand. It's not like you just say, 'let's do it tomorrow'. You got to start all over with coordination. Like I said, when we closed on Cottage 33 last week we had a storm, and now the night of Cottage 31 we had a storm. And for some reason, everyone has gotten a lot more touchy about a little snow. I've had to push the issue and reassure everyone that I'm sure we can all make it to closing in spite of a little snow. This past closing the buyer's attorney was trying to cancel the closing 4 days ahead because of a snow warning - that definitely didn't fly. We do, actually, live in a snow prone region kids.

Cottage 31 is great. Some clients like Erin come up once, never before looked at real estate, never really thought about buying, and end up buying Ranch 2 the first time up. Others, like Van and Eric of Cottage 31, travel around the state for months or years, getting a feel of the lay of the land, different regions, different areas and terrain. I can emphasize with both processes, having gone through both in the several houses I've lived in. Both the common denominator is Catskill Farms - both scenarios and the ultimate motivation for choosing southern Sullivan County - and perhaps pulling the trigger period - were the efforts, designs, history and ability of Catskill Farms and our homes - our creative process, our serious commitment to scheduling and getting it done, our no-nonsense approach to bringing the whole thing in for a soft landing and a quick closing.

Cottage 33, by contract, was set to close on January 15, date set in September. We closed a week before. Cottage 31 was set to close by contract in mid-January - we closed on the 21st. It's a process without excuses - come snow, holidays and what have you. Cottage 31 was a design that kept on evolving from something in our portfolio, to something that merged successfully with what Van and Eric had in mind. Cedar shake siding and arts & crafts stoned columns define the front elevation, with the large roof overhang protecting the 2nd floor bedroom deck.

The home has some views north west and in the spring we will probably screen in this side porch. Presently the porch is all spindled in with a gate to keep the dog in. The stone mason did a nice job on these big oversized stone columns and tapered wood tops.

The entry way has a 12 light front door, and some local square stone. These guys liked the house of Dean a lot. If you remember Dean of Cottage 13 fame, he also is one of the creative directors for Levis. His home has inspired lots of people and design choices. The grays and angular stone set the tone for this one - plank ceiling, crown molding.

Walking in the house opens up, with open stair treads, cable rail, and lots of well-placed windows opening up to a good western view. Their friend called it a 'fairy tale' - I like that almost as much as when Sasha said our homes 'feel like a big hug.' Some of the defining aspects of this home are the salvaged posts, recycled from some carefully dismantled barn.

Straight from the front door, past the steps, is a sunken living room with radiant heat and lots of windows, a fireplace, super high clerestory window pop-up and 4 symmetrical schoolhouse lights.

From the living room corner, looking up towards the front door. Significant fireplace, nice beam, couple of random stone accents and a stair case that obstructs nothing.

I think that's an early american stain on the floor. An interesting design decision that in retrospect was very smart. Instead of the no-brainer set of double french doors/sliding doors, we kept the view path just windows and situated the porch door off the the side, which worked out terrifically. That appears to be a dutch door, with the top leaf and bottom section opening independently of each other. One of our most common requests.

Down below is our woodburning fireplace and irregular hearth stone, perched up 7" and a little oversized in order to allow for some close fire perching.

The kitchen is a study of not just a good use of space, but also a good use of budget. We used some salvaged distressed red wood siding on the wall behind the sink cabinets, and a big 'island'.

One of my favorite countertops, birch plywood stained and epoxied. It's really not only a great looking countertop, it's affordable - one of those perfect marriages/blends of price and product.

From the kitchen looking out. 3 doors, from right to left - bedroom, closet, and bathroom.

The bathroom is a simple clean use of dark paint, rectangular stone, clawfoot tub, fast toilet and wall hung trough sink.

Going up the stairs where a full bath and large bedroom reside - duel sliding barn doors offer privacy and detail. The light has a story, of which I can't recall the exact narrative.

Looking past the rail out the view and into the living room space below.

Lots of light and lots of openness. The bedroom is large, with pitched roof and salvaged beams.

And some of the details - Trough duel sink, plank horizontal wainscoting.

Modern duel flush toilet.

5 panel solid core doors with a classic porcelain door knob.

A kitchen scone on salvaged red barn wood.

A barn light electric style galvanized ceiling mount fixture.

And that's it. James and I spent a lot of time with Van and Eric and I think the final product really shows the effort. Just got done with a final walk-thru at Farm 14 which closes tomorrow. We are also closing on Micro 2 - added up, sums up to 4 closings in January. Then we got one scheduled in March, one scheduled in April, and we have just closed the preliminary deal on 3 starts in the spring, pre-sold. Looks like another big year for the Catskill Farms operation. Sooner or later I'll stop thinking that my luck will run out and sales will slow - at this point, it's hard to attribute it to luck.

There's this mistaken impression that just because I'm in charge of developing, designing, building, marketing and selling a lot of hot little houses, that somehow I'm 'handy', and 'mechanically-inclined'. Some people are even quite put off that I'm not Norm Abrams reinvented, or some other TV carpenter pro. Let's just say that half my customers have more carpentry talent than I do. And luckily that's the case or else I would have been too busy pounding nails than to keep visualizing and dreaming about how to provide new and dynamic housing opportunities for the NYC fast set. Take my new plow truck, for instance. It's new, it's fancy, it's loaded and cost about twice the average Sullivan County annual salary. It's a great example of a gov't incentive program that really motivates real life small-business decisions - call 'accelerated depreciation', I can write off the total purchase price in year 1, instead of depreciating it over multiple years, helping to reduce my taxable income. These capital purchase incentives accelerate purchases and spur the economy - exactly what its supposed to do.

But, jeez, even though I've been plowing now for a few years in order to save money and keep our drives open, I would never call myself a 'plow master'. My previous 1990 plow truck kept high expectations at bay so when I would take out a stone wall, or get stuck at 5:30am, or clip a house - it was understandable since the machinery made a difficult job harder. Now I got a truck with a plow so accurate you could pick your teeth with it. It's the V plow, with a hinge in the middle so both sides move independently. It does everything but wash the dishes, and based on what I've been discovering, it probably can do that. In the cab we have the dump bed controller, the plow controller, and the street sander controller - 4 wheel drive thingee and a few other knobs and buttons.

It's even got a built in tarp to keep things dry or from flying out the back of the dumper.

So, the litany of issues with this new-fangled truck are countless - my neighbor (whose driveway I plow for free, btw) gives me a hard time as I hit her aged stone wall and knock loose her wishing well. The highway guys are judging my plowing accuracy and efficiency, and to make matters worse, I spent like 30 minutes last night trying to figure out how to turn the plow lights on. The regular headlights get blocked by the plow, but I couldn't figure out the plow lights, so I just drove home last night with the plow real low the ground so the regular lights would partially work. Then I spent some more time in my driveway in the dark trying all the buttons, and while I couldn't get the plow lights on, by the time I was done, I couldn't get the interior truck cab lights to go off. So at first I thought they were on a timer, but no, they weren't. So I spent another 10 minutes trying to turn the cab lights off. By the time I found the cab lights, I also found the plow lights, so no more worries of the local snickering I am sure was following me and truck around.

Then James and I were tooling around and believe it or not, a frickin' stone got caught between the dual wheels in the back and we had to call Curtis to hook up a strap and pull the damn stone out of the wheel space, that's how tightly it was lodged in there. Anyways, I aspire to be the plow master, and feel I am making significant strides towards that lofty aspiration. Here's our house, with the front porch callick (yes, that is how callick is spelled), after the rainy icy storm.

And looking down our street Thursday Morning.

Our old dirty snow man who has seen better days, although it is impressive he has now been figure of our front yard for 20+ days.

That's it. Final Walk-thru for Cottage 31 tonight at 6 with Van and Eric. Closing scheduled for tomorrow at 9am. Two more closings on Monday.

There's Lucas in red with his two Richmond buds, Elijah and Sam. And then the damn 12" of snow that rock Virginia Beach the day after Christmas. Like I said, no one had snow shovels or window scrapers or sidewalk salt or anything like that. Below is the broom I used to shovel a path to my car and rid my car of all the now. Luckily, while not the best looking broom, it was pretty hardy and got a high performance rating from me - I mean, that was a lot of snow to move for that little, out-dated, seen-better-days broom.

Lisa's mom and brothers and sisters cavorting about who didn't bring the shovel. The house is Lisa's grandmother's house which she has owned since way back in the '40's.

The cavalry then arrived, 48 hours after the snow began. Lisa and went on a date to see 'Social Network' the night before.

And then my favorite - the ol' 'sno fro'. Not a great example of the ol' sno fro, but they were everywhere in Virginia for a couple of days, making driving a bit dangerous as the fro's came flying off and dislodging from various roofs.

That's me, by the Christmas tree, marooned at my in-laws.

Anyway, now it snowed up here in the Catskills today, maybe 5' inches when it was all said and done. We needed it. Anytime January comes around and the ground is bare, well, it's a bit depressing. Snowed most of the day so I broke out my new 2010 dump truck/sand truck and hit the road. You don't really realize how many properties you own until you got to plow all the damn driveways. The shop, then Cottage 29, Cottage 33, Micro 2, Farm 14, my house, my neighbors house, Cottage 31, Shack 2, Farm 15, Cottage 34, Cottage 36. That's a lot of driveways, and at $70 a pop for a plow job, you can see why we do it ourselves. Many storms take more than one plow to keep the driveways open, meaning a good snow storm can easily cost me a few grand. Plus the fact that we like the drives open early so the myriads of contractors can get in and get to work. Got 4 closings coming up in the next two weeks, so we are focused in on bringing 'em home to daddy.

Kelly and Gianni came to us in the fall and were not sure exactly what they wanted, where they wanted it, and when exactly they wanted it. Like most of our customers all those questions were easily taken care of by traveling from our large stock of sold homes, and the one or two we had for sale. It's hard to overstate how being able to see, touch and feel facilitates the design process for our customers. I like that rail, I don't like that countertop, this bedroom is the right size, oh that's what an on-demand hot water heater looks like, what color is this floor stain? No guess work, no multiple showroom visits. Add to that our online gallery of photos and suppliers, and lots of customers nail down the general aesthetic and some serious details of the homes pretty quickly and painlessly.

Kelly went on and on about how they may need help and more guidance from us than our typical client, which we are more than happy to provide. James and I both pretty intuitive and get on the same page pretty quickly with a wide array of design directions. But it didn't take long after hearing the first few design choices where we realized that once again, we were dealing with some pretty seriously talented design persons. The dark slate stain, and galvanized metal roof, white trim, and grayish roof. It was an instantly classic exterior choice with colors we had never used before in our previous 80 homes.

We see it all the time. Even our customers who aren't using the creative side of their brain to earn a living, it seems like people who end up building with us have a real good sense of style and taste. Up above is our beaded plank ceiling, stained Early American. White barn light sconces, red cross buck door, white trim and some deep grayish blue siding.

The powder room is a simple combination of white plank wood ceiling, a nautical light, clean mirror and angle sink. A straight-forward light blue complements it all.

A couple of shots of the general layout. This Cottage is just under 1000 sq ft and was inspired by Cottage 29, which is just down the street. Open stairs, clean white spindles. And interesting design direction was the use of stained wood at the posts - not salvaged posts, or painted white. Staircases, the stairs and the posts and spindles can really define a house in these smaller spaces.

The mudroom and powder room are pretty expansive for this house, with plenty of room to take off the boots, rid oneself of outerwear. The stone is local, laid irregularly with random shapes. We used salvaged barn wood for the wainscoting.

A center fireplace, gas fireplace, moderate hand hewn beam, and a big bookshelf/wine shelf, stained to match some of the other details of the house.

In front of the bookshelves we built in a wide screen retractable area.

The fireplace with open tread staircases.

Below is a landing that leads up the bath in one direction and the bedroom in the other.

Looking down into the dining and kitchen area. This was a pretty amazing design feat - fitting in this open loft-like open area into 1000 sq ft. Lot's of light, and lots of openness.

The bath was another stroke of genius - pretty fast with simple primary colors and sharp clean fixtures. Black, red, white.

The main bedroom on the other side of the upstairs landings. Couple of barn doors, a 4 panel entry door. A jacobean stain accents the floor.

The details of the homes are really their essence - a wall hung radiator.

Hand crafted barn doors...

A straight-forward kitchen, shelves, and a vibrant stove.

Going down into the basement, with bricks defining the descent into the basement.

Doorknobs...

Handhewn beams...

Old school closet door hardware.

A pretty slick light. The first time we used this series of lights.

6 column radiators...

Schoolhouse lighting...

Just an instant classic. The first in 4 houses we will close on this month.