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

If I needed a reminder as to why our new old houses are such a hit, all it takes is to delve into a remodel of a 100 yr old house to remind me. The thing about old houses is you never really now how old they are, or how they were constructed, or what you are going to find. Even to a old vet like myself, each one is a real challenge and budget-buster.

More or less, just the opposite of the homes we sell, - where any uncertainty to the price or product revolves only around the bedtime debates of our clients as to whether the cedar shake siding is worth the expense, or whether foundation and chimney stone veneer is in the cards. Other than owner-inspired upgrades - which, surprisingly, are relatively rare - we come in right on budget - and when I say right on budget, I mean to the penny, and frankly (honk honk) it's unheard of in construction.

An old house, however, is only for those with lots of tolerance for the unknown. For instance, this frickin farmhouse on Crawford Rd was thought to be around 100 yrs old. Turns out to be more like a 140 yrs old, before standard framing wood was available. So we are finding tree limbs for roof rafters -

And 3 layers of roofing materials. The roof on this house reminds me of one of those archeological digs, or geology projects, where you tell the age of civilization by the layers in the dirt.

On this house we started with regular old worn out shingles, which are a breeze. But not when the next layer is old school standing seam metal roofing (see sample on front porch), below that is very uncommon cedar shake roofing (probably the mid-1800's original) and under that nothing but some bridging (usually you would find some solid sheathing).

Looking up through the roof from the 'master bedroom'.

And then the roof rafters being constructed of tree branches, about 3 inches thick, that really took the cake.

All and all, if you are a homeowner with a hired contractor, probably a $10k surprise in the first week of construction. Goodbye Viking Stove.

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RockHouse living is unique living. It's tough, it's romantic, it's frustrating, it's glorious. 700 sq ft of fine living indeed.

Here's a note from Julia and Marty, the musician/writer combo who took the reins after Lisa and moved on. Julia said she felt like 'Robinson Crusoe' her first summer there.

"Hi Chuck,Congrats on the exploding business of Catskill Farms! That is just amazing, and frankly, if I do say so myself, I am not at all surprised, and if you will remember, I did in fact, mention this to you last spring as we were closing on the Rock House, that "something tells me you will be very busy very soon." Yes, you heard it here first.Those small-ish houses were a great idea, and having people collaborate on the design is a stroke of genius. They are so cute I'm glad they are taking off. And in this business climate too, very smart. Well, I tell you, when we were shopping for a house last year, your house was the only one we were interested in. The other houses out there are just no good. They are overpriced and pretty rickety. Or they are super humongous. Nobody wants to take care of a super huge house on the weekends. What a lot of work! And who wants to pay huge tax bills for a freakin' weekend house? My fantasy is when I get really rich is to buy twenty acres and have you build a couple of little Katrina houses on it. What do you think? Would taxes be huge on a project like that?In the meantime, we are lovin' the Rock House, I mean LOVIN' it!!! Boy the winter was tough though. Ouch. We may in fact close the place up for the winter, next year, as we didn't get out to Sullivan County that much. It sure was beautiful though. Beautiful and treacherous. Almost killed myself on the drive way.Well, just wanted to say congratulations to you and Lisa again on your great success. We just love our house. It is so well built. The roof was great. No problems during all of that harsh weather.Last summer was amazing, as we were there for three months. I even leased a horse at Stonewall Barns in Jeffersonville.I wish the economy were better out there, we'd move full time for sure.Well, just wanted to say hi. Haven't seen Poker for awhile. I fear she did not make it through the winter. Will let you know if I see her.Best to Lisa.cheers,Julia"

Our bedroom, living room, reading room, music room combo -

And the winter's fury making access a bit arduous.

Getting a foundation in is not the easiest thing to do. It's very weather and subcontractor dependent. It works like this - the excavator clears the building lot of trees and stumps (2-3 days), digs a big hole (1 day), with the bottom of the hole being at least 4'+ underground to prevent any impact from frozen ground 'heaving the building'. The mason then comes in and lays the forms for his footings (4 hours on these size houses). Then the building inspector needs to come by to check it out - the width/depth and rebar reinforcement. The mason pours the next day. The mason comes back to strip his forms, and start forming up the foundation walls, which sit on the footings ( about 1 day). Then the inspector returns to check out the walls and the cross-grid rebar reinforcement. Then the mason pours his walls, and 2 days later comes back to strip his forms. Then the excavator waterproofs the foundation (tars the foundation), and installs his footing drains all around the perimeter of the basement to keep it dry (#2 stone and perforated pipe). Then the inspector returns to check out the installation of the drainage, then we are ready to move the dirt back (backfill). If everything goes perfect, it takes under 2 weeks - but rain can make it a nightmare for access (cement trucks, stone trucks, mason trucks, big excavator) and progress. These went pretty well, mostly because the subcontractors were right on schedule. Paying them quickly helps this process.

Here is Ana & Pablo's new sexy foundation in the morning sun. This is what they call a walk-out, with doors and windows leading out from the basement.

And Rob and Leah's foundation, tarred and backfilled, waiting politely for the house framers. Another couple of weeks and the trees will be ablooming.

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The facts are pretty straight-forward - if hard to believe.

We closed on a house in January, two in February, 2 in March, 1 or 2 in April, am sitting on 3 signed contracts, and have 2 $10k deposits sitting in the bank in order to reserve a place in line. My team and I are feeling very fortunate to be ripping a hang 5 atop this economic tsunami.

"Builder" magazine is doing a feature on 'niche building' and we made the cut, finally. Although from my limited experience, the people who make the papers and magazines aren't the ones actually doing anything noteworthy - they just have friends in high places. I know that's a class-ist statement, but hey, my dad was a house painter so a little chip on the should never hurts anyone.

Spring is here, and so far this week the weather has been great. The ground is drying out and a few more days like this we will be able to tidy up Bella Drive and the houses that reside there, get the grass growing, and leave it as neat and natural as possible.

We executed our winter gameplan pretty well on target - another week and most of the work will be done at Highland Farms. Given the respite of finishing homes gives us the opportunity to take care of some loose ends like build a deck at my new office, finish Cheri's exterior stone patio, repair a small leak at Farm 7, troubleshoot a basement moisture issue at Farm 8, review a 6 month post closing walk-thru with the gentlemen at Cottage 1, etc... Amazing, 1 yr ago Cottage 1 was not even finished, and now we are reserving Cottage 14.

Well, no need to beat a dead horse (what a terrible saying), but we have our fingers crossed that all the interest in our homes results in closed sales and happy homeowners.

Here's a pic of me and my dog in front of Farmhouse #1, the very first house I built. It sold in April 2004. It wasn't bad for my first try at country building.

And then our first attempt at grassroots marketing, when the marketing budget was around $45. It's been suggested my buzz cut is not the best look for me.

And then, after 12 months of planning, begging for money and early advances, pleading with my help to show up, reinventing every wheel ever invented and rolling along on a huge learning curve -

...this happened on the final week of construction.

To say the least, it took a lot of gumption to get past this pickle. I remember Curtis calling me up and trying to break it to me easy - 'um, uh, 2 trees fell on the house last night."