Wow, now that's funny. In my last post, I linked to Bethel Farms' Brand New Country Cottage, which in effect, is nothing more than an architect I fired (Irace Architecture), and Realtor who could never sell nothing for us, and a developer (Bethel Farms) who no matter how much guidance he gets always chooses the wrong direction at the T teaming up to try and compete dishonestly with us.
But, what's funny about it is that I graciously linked to the cottage to help them out - although it might be said I meanly did it just to juxtaposition our homes with theirs. I'm a big meany like that. Well, anyway, to make a long story short, the link is now disabled - they took down the house from the link. That's got to be an embarrassing rebuke to Irace Architecture and the whole team over there.
With Catskill Farms, I don't even like to use the same paint color in our homes, even after 60 homes, because I respect the desire of our customers to be original, to be in an original home. I think it reflects directly on our integrity as artists/designers - we value the integrity of our designs, they are not commodities that are to be sold off to the lowest bidder.
Look, the thing is I don't want to sound mean, or spiteful, or anything like that. But Irace Architecture used to be our architect until I found out he was selling our award-winning plans to our competitors. And Bethel Farms, you know, I didn't care much about their non-existent or extremely lackluster sales until they attempted to steal our identity, confuse the marketplace, and borrow heavily from our marketing, our strategies, and our home designs. I mean, the owner of Bethel Farms actually leveraged his relationship with one of my associates in order to get inside info.
We live in a very non-dynamic marketplace - this isn't NYC with competing condos that look exactly alike and have exactly the same amenities. Here you had this developer with unlimited funds just taking what he wanted from a small little successful company. To no avail, but still, it's the principle.
They even named their stupid cottage "Country Cottage #1". Not the Charleston, the Bettoncourt, Not the TimberLine like all the other dumb suburban homes in dumb suburban developments. They even took our simple little technique of numbering our cottages and farmhouses.
How Unoriginal. And the marketplace has spoken firmly in favor of originality.
UP CHUCK-
ReplyDeleteOR SHOULD I SAY WHATS UP CHUCK! DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE COINED THE WORD "FARMS" OR "COTTAGE". LOSING JOE IRACE AS YOUR LEAD ARCHITECT MAY HAVE HURT CATSKILL FARMS MORE THAN YOU RELIZE. HERE IS A LINK TO A FELLOW NAMED JOHN RABBE YOU PROBLY NEVER HEARD OF HIM BUT HE IS AN ARCHITECT FROM WASHINGTON. http://www.countryplans.com/plans.html
HE AND KEN KERNS WERE PIONEERS IN SO CALLED "COTTAGE" HOME BUILDING AND DESIGN. THEY WERE CONSTRUCTING ENERGY EFFICENT HOMES FROM RENEWABLES AND TEACHING OWNER BUILDERS SINCE THE SIXETIES. SO DON'T BE SO FAST TO CAST THE FIRST STONE AS NO MATTER HOW ORIGINAL YOU ARE SOMEONE SOMEWHERE HAS DONE IT FIRST. YOU BUILD SOME NICE HOMES GOOD LUCK.....CHUCK
Just to clarify - no one is claiming to pioneer anything - I just don't enjoy creating something, collaborating with someone, divulging confidential strategic direction with someone, paying someone to draft some plans- and then having that person sell our shared intellectual property to my competitors.
ReplyDeleteIt's a simple concept - it's call integrity. It's obviously elusive to some.
http://www.countryplans.com/plans.html
ReplyDeleteGreat website!!!! I'm being sarcastic