Our Lives in the Catskills
It's Saturday morning, another very nice day - 2 nice days in a row is quite a rarity this summer. This top picture is of Albert's house and barn, with the grass coming in and the driveway smoothed.
Not a very exciting picture for most people - but the signs of utility trucks on the road where we are building Cottage 17,19 and 22 means one thing for me - Electric (and subsequent celebration). Many things move slowly up here and with the exception of Catskill Farms, most dealings with vendors and the like can test the patience of most people. We have nearly completed 3 new homes before we had electric to the site - meaning lots of generators and generator maintenance, such as who is stopping at the gas EVERY morning to fill up the gas containers, which subcontractor will need power who won't come with a generator, and mostly, it's impossible to hop from job to job, since every time you relocate, -even for just a 5 minute project, you have to lug a 300 lb generator with you. Anyway, electric utility trucks are always a welcome sight to my eyes.
Here's our offices - this large steel construction post and beam structure served for 20+ yrs as the Eldred School District bus repair terminal. We bought it in the spring of 2008 and have big plans for it - mostly, renovating it into chic shared office space for those professionals who are outgrowing their offices.
Here's a shout out to Lara - our incredibly skilled controller, as well as about 12 other jobs. Good employees consistently help us grow our business - and we spent 5 years looking for the right ones for the right jobs. And as I have mentioned, it took the economy to go off the rails to free up some of this labor that had secure jobs elsewhere. As I have also mentioned, we have benefited from the down economy in many ways - more access to construction and office labor, more service and better prices from our vendors, and pickier clients who choose us more and more when concerned about lasting value in this large purchase.
And James. What more needs to be said? Good help enables businesses to grow and James has qualified as good help from day one (besides that HF3 window order mistake). People ask me if I am capable of giving unqualifed praise, and the quick answer is definitely not. Sorry.
And here's Edwin's 2 sons in America, just repatriated from Honduras, right before the coup and all the political upheaval going on over there. The thing about business is, sure, you love your customers - but a business provides satisfaction as well from seeing employees and associates do better for themselves through the business - be it personally, financially or career-wise.
Deja Vu - Another Day, Another Closing
It was only 2 weeks ago that we brought sweet Cottage 21 home to roost, and now the much-sought after Barryville Cottage was passed on to new homeowners this morning. Congratulations Richard and Nancy - from the forests of Ecuadar to the Mountains of the Catskills.
One of my best country living stories involve these new owners - so we were tooling around inside the house, taking a look and creating punch list of things we agreed to do for them - we were in the basement, and something moved, and it looked like running water but it was really a small snake and while this would have ruined the deal for everyone else, Richard ran over and picked it up and started looking and tickling its belly, and then Nancy with as much enthusiasm rushed over to check it out. That was definitely a first - the snake closed the deal. Usually I use my handsome son Lucas (I know, I know - I can hear everyone now ' 'takes after his Dad') or back before she died, my old dog Bella was real good at closing deals. Some customers have accused me of without fail having a cute deer family run across the lawn right at crucial deal making stages. Real foggy this morning - making for some great shots. This house is circa 1925 - and it's really the type of house that inspires the entire business. Great country architecture - the fact that this house was in great shape, was a real bonus.
We added the stone, painted the walls, cleaned real good, redid the floors, replaced the countertop, added a lot of spray foam insulation in the attic and basement.
It's a simple house, but very functional. Cared for diligently by the previous owners, who owned the house for 27 years.
Upstairs, - more of the same - new paint, raised the ceilings, added our famous white painted planks on the ceilings.
A backsplash and tile countertop. New sink and faucet.
This bathroom renovation was done by the original folks who owned the home - while some of their designs around the house didn't turn out perfectly, they nailed the bathroom.
Picture of the pond - Richard is planning to invent a microbe.
And a picture from the rear of the property.
Simple house. Simple Catskill Farms Story - Buy a house - Live Happily Ever After.
Visitors
The internet's an amazing place. We get 9000 visitors a month to our website and 100 day (3000 a month) to our blog. Of the website visitors, perhaps 75% of them are unique visitors, meaning visiting for the first time (in web parlance). So - 6750 new people are finding out about Catskill Farms every month of every year (or 324,000 persons have discovered us since the website launch in 2003). It's no wonder we are able to make a sale every once in awhile. For all of you frequent stopper-byers, thank you. And for those who are new to the concept that 'yes, you can buy a country house that works' and 'yes, you can buy a country house that gives pleasure not pain' - Welcome.
Cottage 21 - Sold and Gone
Another Day - Another Closing. What more needs to be said? Today we said goodbye to sweet lil' Cottage 21, the last of the 3 spec homes we started back in November 2008, at the absolute height of the panic and real estate decline. We sold Modern Cottage in May, Cottage 18 in June, and now Cottage 21 in August. This house is sweet - with 2 beds, 2 full baths, open living room space, built out basement, security, audio, wide planks floors, wood burning fireplace, pond view and 6 private acres, I ask - what more could a family want? This one took awhile to bring to a successful conclusion, but we can wait it out these days- even just a year ago, I would have flipped if a closing took this long, since we needed the cash.
The sleeping loft up above looks down onto the living room and fireplace.
Radiator, wide spindles, handhewn beams, galvanized metal sconce, exterior stained green cedar siding.
View of the pond across the street.
And the final profile pic on a morning before a storm.
A masterpiece, by all definitions - a house we are incredibly excited to have designed, built and sold for Norah and Jeffrey.
