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

Big news - perhaps our last house up in that project straddling North Branch and Fremont in Northern Sullivan County. This is a pretty special place in the world -remote, rural, big skies, big views. But not so remote, just 15 minutes from Callicoon and 30 from Livingston Manor and Narrowsburg. I bought - gulp - 300 acres up there, right at the beginning of Covid, along with my gigantic gamble of 16 lots in Saugerties about the same time, and I think I had another 4 or 5 lots in between in like Kerhonkson, etc... That type of acquisition, entirely with debt, in a world-wide pandemic whose ramifications and consequences were yet to be understood in anyway - I mean, come on, seriously? That's risk tolerance. It's not like Soros betting it all against the British Pound, or Hitler going all in with an attack eastward into the vastness of Russia, or Michael Burry against the real estate market in 2007 - but for my size, cash flow, and sailing into the unknown full of sea monsters and flats earths, the gamble was shockingly bold. And it paid off. I was in the right place, positioned well, with 20 years of accumulated experience, and an opportunity came my way and I pounced, and as importantly, executed. By solving every problem that arose each day. Never slacking. Never shirking. Never procrastinating. Just taking care of business.

It's actually hard to remember how simple tasks became hard tasks - supply disruptions to the point where common lumber became uncommonly hard to get, if not outright unavailable. Price swings that pushed plywood from $20 a sheet to $100, and you use hundreds of sheets in a job. Closed building departments, changing regulatory environment, moving target for sales prices, people getting sick. Pretty crazy stuff.

So this house on 20 acres has pretty much everything and is well-suited and sited to take advantage of the plot of land and the views. It's one of our favorite large Ranches, sold with an assist from Erik Freeland of Country House Realty. Selling for a tidy profit but less than it was worth. But freeing up the cash and moving on is a regret I'm used to living with. It's impossible to calculate, really no way to do it, how much money I've left on the table over the years. But there is a way to measure it - and only one way, and it's a bit indirect - Success. Catskill Farms has it. The micro is unimportant when the macro is undeniable. The micro certainly makes up the macro, but the micro is mostly lost and forgotten while the Macro lives on.

Lives on in my bank account, and in the bank accounts of a huge number of employees, subcontractors, employees of subcontractors, vendors, banks, towns supported by our taxes we generated. Lives on with the homes dotting the landscape of the Hudson Valley, timeless homes, good looking homes, eye catching homes, modest homes, well-tended to homes, valuable homes. Lives on on the profits of our clients bank when they sell, which is actually just so huge it's hard to believe. The impact this hard-working, bill paying, eye-on-the-ball company has made and continues to make is huge.

I guess I'm focused and bit more aware of it lately because I've been out and about lately. Been to party or two, attended Jeff Bank Customer appreciation night at the Forestburgh Playhouse and a bunch of other events I don't usually attend, but have been because, wait for it, I'm engaged and now have a partner in crime to make grand entrances with. The point is when I attend these events, usually filled with business owners, realtors, bankers, community members of some substance, the reaction is always the same - respect and deference for my contributions over the last 25 years. It's just when you are in an industry with tight margins and lots of day to day problems, the macro results and impacts need to be consciously snake charming that beast from the basket, cause otherwise all you know is the danger of the rattle. No matter how you shake it, no matter the angle you view it from, what I've done locally and regionally, for longer, than anyone else around, is of great and enviable import and consequence.

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Yes, getting hitched. You heard it here first. 15 years of raising a kid and staying focused on my business, pivoting to a more fully rounded life.

Not to be vain at a moment like this, but I think this athletic shirt wrongly accentuates my gut. Must be the angle, or the lighting.

Land I didn’t buy.  Clients I didn’t work with. Deals I didn’t make.  Miami condos I sold instead of kept.  Partnerships I didn’t enter into. Employees I didn’t hire.  Trends I didn’t chase.  Women I didn’t date.  Principles you didn’t fight for.  A business you didn’t start.  There is no tangible way to measure the benefit of things you didn’t do and chase, but they are as much a part of any successful business or life journey as the celebrated ones that define a career.   The silent and quiet navigation away from something - and many times it’s not clear if the decision is right or wrong, and many times it never becomes clear if you dodged a bullet or missed an opportunity.  The only thing you can know for sure is that you are not diluting any of your time on it, and hence something else is benefitting by the focus bandwidth available.

House for sale shortly, in Fremont NY.

I've been in the right place at the right time.  Late 90’s, early 2000s.  There is no excuse. Sitting in the exact chair you would hope to. What am I speaking of you ask, and that would be the beginning of the rise of the opportunity to invest in emerging internet companies and technologies at their very beginning.   Amazon, Facebook, PayPal, Google, etc…. I was sitting in a chair is a quasi-tech company, with the technology speak and action all around me and the best I could do was invest in Global Crossing, with my measly $5000 - the fastest growing broadband-laying company, on the cover of lots of magazines that quickly went broke from over-expansion.  I was in my early 30’s, in the mix of the whole scene, yet didn’t have one insight into how ride the emerging tech pony. And to be honest, I was surrounded by Wharton grads, business school grads, tech people, and neither did they.  They understood how to position to look techie and perhaps become a buyout target, but the water-cooler talk about investing in Amazon or the like didn’t exist even though we spent hours in bars shooting the shit.  No brainers only exist in the rear view mirror - nothing is clear at the time, the fog of emerging tech, the free-market chaos and inefficiency of any tech winners and losers- be it tulips, railroads, TV’s, radio, real estate. For the billionaires and millionaires who did ride the tech train, you got to give them credit.  There were thousands if not millions of people who were witnessing the same revolution. I couldn't have been closer.

House for sale shortly, in Barryville NY.

I also remember sitting in Starbucks in New Paltz circle 2015 just minding my own business reading the business pages of some newspaper like I like to do and some college kid grabs my attention and starts repeating a mantra to me - ‘buy bitcoin, buy it, buy it, it’s going to explode’ - like a religious revivalist along the Erie Canal in 1850. And he’s right - it did explode, and if I bought $1000 of it, I’d be sitting on millions.

But here’s the issue with that one - there is ZERO chance I would not have lost or misplaced my password or blockchain or whatever they call it - literally zero, so I’d be like that guy who was spending tens of thousands of dollars digging through a public dump looking for the hard-drive or a disc with his bitcoin passwords on it, until the county shut him down.  That scenario would be harder to live with than never buying in the first place.  But again - right place, right time, wrong mindset.

House under contract, that will sell as soon as the buyer's attorney gets back from a European Vacation.

But to be honest, the odds of me buying Amazon or similar in 1999, then holding onto it for 28 years through ups and downs of the market, through ups and downs of the my financial life, is close to zero.  You hear tales of buy and hold stories if you bought Coca-cola in 1930 and just held onto if 100 years you’d worth $100,000,000.  Yea, good luck, through depressions, world wars, Cold Wars, recessions, etc….   Who would have held onto their tech stocks during the plummet of 2000, and if they did, whose to say they hung on to the right ones?

The financial life is full of backward looking, FOMA regret.  I think it’s just the nature of it.  Doesn’t make it true or an accurate emotion - but accurate emotions aren’t the same as having that emotion.  I study and second guess my stock portfolio daily, and barely give my large real estate portfolio a 2nd glance.  Money is about behavior and discipline and self-awareness - the math behind money is not the primary driver of wealth building - it’s staying out of your own way.

The Delaware River, as seen from the bridge from Callicoon to PA.

So, to that point, with Space X at its lowest post-IPO price ever (now quickly rebounding), count me in.  Not about metrics, cash flow, quality or logic, etc…. It’s about learning from the past - I’m buying, I’m holding. Talk to me in 15 years.  All you can do with investing is look yourself in the mirror and say, what would I do differently next time?  Thing is, few people actually act on their pronouncement, and when the markets slide or gyrate they quickly lose track of their principles and sell, pivot and protect.

Me, in Sardinia, on my Enfield. The same group of guys are mostly now signed up for a trip through the Spanish Iberian Pennisula.

I did however pursue with great gusto a great idea of how to augment, add to and enhance an entire’s region’s architectural and building landscape, and single-mindedly executed a vision, day after day, decade after decade, no matter what business or life threw my way.  So, no, I wasn’t able to capitalize to being at the right place at the right time, in the right room, surrounded by the right people and ride the creation of tech to the financial heavens, but I did end up putting my distinctive stamp on most every little town, hill and valley in the one of the most beautiful areas of the world.  A concrete, tangible, good looking stamp.

I'm 3/4 through an aggressive land and house build investment cycle, with a house in Fremont NY finishing up in 2 weeks, and a house outside Barryville NY finished, now staged, and hitting the market in a week or so. We also just entered into Contract on a spec house in Kerhonkson, and one is in Saugerties is making good progress. I'm now expecting 2026 to be a pretty good year - which is pretty extraordinary since all sorts of possible head-winds are out there - from increasing inventory of homes for sale, to the crazy world, to interest rates, to competition, etc... I'm a master sailor in all types of seas it appears. I'm also surrounded in the field and in the office with the most talent I've ever assembled, talent that is complementary to my goals.

Like Oscar Schindler said his father told him, you need most in life a good lawyer, accountant and doctor. I have those, and on the medicine front I opted into a decade ago to a concierge retainer type relationship with a doctors group out of NYC - The Princeton Longevity Center offers 'executive style' health care, comprehensive head to toe, state of the art approach and facilities.

So I pay a few thousand dollars a year for 24/7 access to Dr Karlsberg, who is like a pretty high level NYC doctor, who literally and personally responds to any and all texts and emails and phone calls, with all the time in the world that I need.

To stay subscribed to that service, you have to opt in to their head to toe exam every two years which gives you the low down on everything from your heart and all other organs, to full body scans, cancer scans, plaque scans, hearing, seeing, EKG heart activity under exercise, a nutrionist.

This all takes place on the 71st floor of the Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan. It's all day affair, with your private room, lunch, etc... Since it is NYC, there is always a bit of smoke and mirrors, paying for prestige element to it, but at the same time, the comprehensiveness and expertise of the staff is world class. And what is one of the primary secrets to longevity - preventivw care, and early detection. If shit doesn't sneak up on you, you stand a much better chance at surviving it.

Turns out, I test out like I'm a 38 year old. Heart function, weight, heart health, artery health, organ function, body mass/fat levels, muscle tone, flexiblity. That's good to hear that the results are matching the effort, since I think the last 3 years of my life - even though they have been a shit show of stress and problem-solving - have probably been the three healthiest years I've stitched together in decades, when measured by activity, nutrition, amount (or lack of) drugs and alcohol, and general intentionality to my health. Not perfect by any means, but a consistent good effort that has the doctors smiling. So to have this touchstone evaluation every two years is a motivator to stay on the right track.

In your 50's shit hits the fan. You are either taking care of yourself and beating back the hands of time to some degree, or you are quickly showing your age. Both approaches reveal themselves further in the early 60's. And to end this post with a complete surprise full circle - the benefits of good health aren't always tangible- you never know what sprain, tear, break, disease didn't happen because you paid attention and ate well, stretched and kept moving.

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I took my road bike along with me and after I checked into the Moxy on Ann Street, grabbed the bike lane along the west side highway and road it up to the GW bridge.

Got rained on on the way back, so I stopped in Harlem for some Indian food. My typical order - veggie samosa, butter chicken, regular naan, rice and riata. I also had a delicious sweet lassi.

Little did I know as I was capturing this fogged in NYC from the GWB it was moving my way.

It's been raining for a few days now in this whole region. For some reason, i don't seem to care.

It’s hard to spend much time appreciating what didn’t happen to you - like proving a negative - if it didn’t happen, how do you calibrate the appreciation? If it did happen- if a house did flood after a storm, if a house did leak after a storm, if roofs blew off after a storm, if a truck or trucks got stuck after a storm - it’s easy to calibrate your rage, which I’d like to say is in direct proportion to the problem in front of you but I don’t find that to be true.  Some of the problems that really aren’t big deals annoy me more than they should probably because they should have avoided in the first place, and some of the biggest are so serious you have no choice but to put aside emotion, and dig in and fix it with all your financial and labor resources.

And I’ve had some doozies over the years- completely out of the blue, disasters.  The one that really sticks out, but only because I was sitting around minding my own business, was after I finally finished a 4 lot subdivision build out in Phoenixville PA, a once in a generation flood hit and I got a call that there was 8’ of water in my olympic-sized swimming pool basement and that the tenant was being rescued in a canoe.  I mean, talk about a scheduling pivot!

The Hudson Valley got some flooding recently, with more rain more quickly than the streams, creeks and rivers could hold, and boy did they rise quickly. It was the volume over a short period of time rather than the volume, generally.  I’ve seen this in my personal experience and with others - that disaster flooding seems to only happen once in a generation for flood prone areas, so there is a memory lapse or fading of how bad it was, and gentrification and business building creeps in and starts to prosper and then wham, bam, flood.   Livingston Manor is once every 10 years, and I’m reading social media like “worst we’ve ever seen’, “omg I can’t believe it’, when anyone who has been around for even a short while is well aware that Livingston Manor floods. Always has, always will, and it’s typically not minor flooding. The fact that most of those new businesses are less than 7 years old means they had no institutional memory of the pretty predictable flooding.  I’m not blaming them, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the ‘when not if’ scenario that was sure to occur.

I've had some additional opportunities to buy land or rental homes in a flood area - not a flood prone area, just an area that could flood - and I turned them down, just because been there done that. Sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's not.

The flood in Phoenixville was a lot less predictable, with the last one being in 1970, so that’s literally a lifetime - and as Phoenixville expanded there was pressure to develop, redevelop, rehab, fix up or build new in areas that most people around for awhile would and did look at with trepidation - but who’s going to listen to some old timer when deals are to be had.  The timing of it, just after 5 years of effort on my part with a very heavy lift to get it done, during covid and all those challenges, was supremely unfair. Many young families had just moved into the area.

My point is, going back to the beginning, when I drove around on Thursday to our job sites wondering what I was going to find, I didn't find much of anything to worry about, so it's hard to get excited or emotionally elevated about things that didn't happen - the brain just doesn't work that way.

That’s also why you always got to have some reserve gas in the tank, cause shit is going to happen, all the time, when it’s least expected. It’s a lesson that keeps on being true - the test is never over, never ending. While it didn't happen this time, the unexpected is still out there lurking, stalking me.

And that’s why my next move is so interesting, compelling and difficult.  I have the best team I have ever assembled.  I have the money and financing.  I was just introduced to some land that could keep me busy for a few years.  But no matter how great the team or the opportunity, the job is hard, the responsibility real, the management complex, the risks always genuine.  There is no coasting through construction projects - at least not at the volume and speed we need to operate in order to pay our bills, benefits and earn our profits.

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the Taylor Swift wedding, and Im thinking perhaps I was too dogmatic in my opinion of her needing to insert herself into the world cup festivities, the 250 USA founding festivities - I’m not taking all that back, I think her inclination to insert herself in other people’s parties is a bit problematic, but logistically, in NYC, in a covered venue, makes sense.  (pictures are emerging of Travis Kelce a bit out of shape in training camp).

1, so much is going on, high profile people coming and going from the City is rather unnoteworthy and hard to track, so her guest list gets protected.  2, the covered arena eliminates aerial distraction in the form of drones, helicopters, etc… trying to cover the event.  3, the security capabilities is unsurpassed.  4.  It’s easy for her guests to get to.  And 5, then the guests just fade back into the NYC scene, which is always filled with celebs and goings on - with a well-protected guest list, you couldn’t say why this person or that person was in town.  The effectiveness of the NDA is pretty impressive too - few leaks about attendees or activities even a month later - the NDA must have had both real teeth and real ways to track.

Our Ranch being constructed in Kerhonkson seems to be going under contract, which would be a big (though predictable) win.  And with our Barn at Timberlake and the Modern Ranch in Fremont finishing up, and our projects under construction moving right along, it’s just another one of those profitable years- though, the profit margins are shrinking, and good planning and risk management is becoming more and more important - which to be honest is fine with me, the harder it is the more we are equipped to handle it, and certainly more equipped than our competition. Books are tight, cash flow healthy, clear head and lots of pondering the next move.

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Fremont NY Modern Ranch.

I’ve been on the bicycle since last Sunday, left home last Saturday, maybe even last Friday over 8 days ago.  Having 4-6 hours on a bike to think, ponder, conclude, rewind and reconsider makes for a difficult entry point for blog post - oh, where to start. I'll weave a little cultural commentary in here, like Bret Easton Ellis in his book American Psycho, whose narrator unexpectedly riffed on Genesis and a whole host of other tangents in between his murderous night-time activities. Ellis knows his subjects a lot better than i will ever hope to.

Let’s at least lead with the lead for once - successfully closed our big spread on Dymond Road in Kerhonkson, and our bread and butter Ranch in Narrowsburg.  2 completely different exercises of construction, strategy, finance and execution.

Dymond Road Barn house sits on 30 acres.  It also has a 26’x26’ 2 story garage.  The land was cleared for a view.  The house was over 4000 sq ft.  I cleared, grubbed and planted a yard which we tended and grew.  We furnished the house.  We priced it at nearly $2,000,000 - not that much of an outlier for the gold coast of Ulster County, and some of the much lesser stuff that gets priced mid $1,000,000. Compass Real Estate gets the assist.

The Narrowsburg Ranch sold for just under $800k - a good price. It’s on 5 acres.  We’ve built a lot of these, on spec and retainer.  They are fun, liveable, easy to understand. Easy to own.

Between the two, Catskill Farms brought in $2,500,000 in earnings and cash while I was on a bicycle near Canajoharie NY- one of the depressed canal towns we passed through on this 387 mile Erie Canal trek.  Most of that money came to the Catskill Farms coffers, since we build mostly with cash these days.

I had a lot of time to contemplate the current state of America culture on my ride, listening repeatedly to Ella Langley’s album Dandelion.  This Linda Ronstadt-inspired baddie, with front bangs and shirt skirts, produced a great album that has swept across the States and inspired a whole new men’s club, the Ella Fellas.

Linda -

Ella

A little slutty, drinks a bit too much, definitely spends a fair time in pubs and bars, likes her hard liquor and a mastery of the southern twang. The music industry find a muse for our general interests.

The question is, with all the attention, how long till Travis and Taylor show up in the front row of one of her shows, which brings me to another point since I’m vibing stream of consciousness, am I being unfair to these two since they didn’t show up at the World Cup finals, though that could just be attributed to Travis’ uppity and condescending view of soccer as a sport (shared by many of his fellow Americans).

Ella compared to Olivia Rodrigo is interesting, because while Olivia’s Vampire is all about the evil-doing’s of a player-paramour, Ella gives some worldly grace to love’s lost, reserving blame and generally letting and let live. 

The ride from Buffalo to Albany was a big accomplishment - 360 miles on a gravel bike, which is more efficient than a mountain bike but less than a road bike.  It’s a lot of miles, spread out over 8 days, hugging the Erie Canal, which by definition and purpose, is thankfully pretty flat.  But it’s still a lot of time in the saddle, a lot of rotation of ye ole legs.  We passed through dozens of canal towns, once rowdy and raucous and vibrant and promising, but for 125+ years having a future/fortune pegged to a canal abandoned and forgotten, towns existing out of inertia than economic vibrancy. The Canal, finished in 1825, expanded a few times to parlay its success, to flame out relatively quickly as the train took over in the late 1900’s.  A birth and demise based on a transportation revolution, much like the Catskills I home, which many people claim declined in popularity as the airplane allowed New Yorkers to travel farther and easier than the Borscht belt.

We were right in the middle of the forest fires smokes and to be honest, for all the hubbub 24/7 about the smoke, air quality and stay indoor warnings, there was relatively little overt concern on the ride - which was odd on one hand since we were outside and breathing heavy, but not as odd as you would think because anyone riding 400 miles while camping in this religious revival meets traveling circus meets Dead show meets military encampment is a bit out of the ordinary -not in a judgy good or bad way, but just not your average joe.

Smoky orange.