Nice Feedback

Scott and Erika over at Yankee Lake sent us over a nice note today after we did some punch list work -

Dear chuck

Thanks for sending the guys over. You have the most professional people working for you. Brian is terrific and Tito is a real perfectionist. Again we love the house and after hearing all the horror stories from our friends with reference to their contractors we feel really truly blessed to have found you to build us this fantastic new home!

Our best

Scott and Erica 

New David Cross Show

So David (think 'Arrested Development'), is one of our favorite clients, having bought into the Catskill Farms thing back a few years ago, and credits his country home with being the sole inspiration for all ensuing work - a writing endeavor entirely inspired and completed on his back porch of Cottage 6 is now premiering on IFC channel. I don't know what I am talking about, but I think he writes, directs and pretty much is in charge of the whole kahuna.

Check it out - "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" on the IFC channel.

A Masterpiece - 50's Ranch #2 Sold (3rd one in February)

The thing is, dog, (I've been watching too much Randy Jackson on American Idol), that it is real early in the morning. Not even 4:30, but I really was pretty pooped out last night after just a whirlwind of activity in 100 million directions last week and went to bed real early. Just a sampling of this past week's activities include kicking more ass on the DIY renovation than genghis khan at the battle of Chakirmaut, continuing to build 6 new houses, getting the planning and construction ready for 5 spring starts, spearheading a new marketing push, spearheading a new PR push, managing about 9 employees, 20 subcontractors, 3 businesses, 24 pieces of real estate. Not mentioning being the perfect dad, husband and dog master (just kidding but I do do (note the dog pun) my best).

Not that I'm counting, or trying to rub it in those competitors who just can't quite get it done in this challenging real estate environment, but that's our 3rd sale this year, and leaves us with 4 homes under contract that will be closing in the next two months. Last yr we sold 14 homes, and it looks like we might be able to do that this year as well. And for an underfunded little niche boutique business like we were/are, that's a huge amount of homes.

Wow, 50's Ranch #2 is a masterpiece. I mean, you all know I'm pretty biased about these houses - that i think their size, pricing, value, design collaboration, land selection, land placement, etc... is just about as good as it gets- but this house just really has that one-two punch of great design and owner-risktaking that worked out about as well as it could. What I like about it as well was the fact that I was able to pull a good well-framed picture of the future owners - most times my portraits are so pathetic.

What didn't hurt either for this post was just a perfect sunny friday morning for picture taking, with cool shadows and fun accents.

Like I had mentioned earlier, Tony and Laurie had been contacting us throughout their upstate getaway search - which lasted a few years. A long search is not that uncommon, since it's a big decision, becomes almost part of a family's lifestyle (looking for homes upstate on the weekends), and, in the end, is a pretty difficult decision because there are a lot of towns, and for the most part, the architecture is not incredibly appealing.

So, after going in that direction, and then this direction, and almost buying a place way upstate, they decided to come into our clan, and I think everyone is pretty confident it was the best decision the Owners could have made - especially when the combined talents of them and us produced this mid-century classic.

And that's the thing the losers who try to copy us don't understand - our homes aren't static, they don't stay the same, we are always pushing the envelope of what is possible design-wise and construction-wise, we are always taking chances, moving one way, then another, then another. I had a guy telling me the other day that he's aware of several companies that are out there studying our stuff with a microscope - but, in the end, a microscope can't capture soul, or that feeling people get when they walk into our homes.

Our homes emote a strong design personality- and that is something that is not easily mimicked.

What is overlooked as well in our originality is what our homeowners bring to the table. It seems like everyone we work with has great taste - some work in creative fields, others do not, but either way it seems like the customers who are attracted to us have a strong creative bent and a real creative itch they are dying to scratch.

Granted, it may be considered a bit over the top to scratch that itch by building a home, but hey, I'm not judging.

I mean there is so much debate about what constitutes value, especially in these turbulent times - but there is little debate among our new homeowners, who can easily see a well-built, well-designed, inexpensive to operate, upstate getaway is valued in many ways other than dollar and cents.

What I love seeing as well - loving healthy competition and respecting it's ability to force us to continually raise the bar - is when one of our bad imitators (and believe me, they are all bad for some reason) buys the land, has the house designed, builds the house, tries to sell the house, lowers the price 10 times and then finally overpays a commission (if they ever sell it), is the realization that there is no money left for the developer/builder. From the outside, it appears Catskill Farms is raking it in (granted, we do make a nice living and try to compensate everyone reasonably) but once you try it, you realize how expensive it is - the nice piece of land, the curved driveway, the distance the house is from the road, the placement, the wood siding, the metal roof, the security system, the audio system, the very cool radiators, the fine kitchens, the tile, the backsplashes, the perfect lighting, the wide plank floors, the railings, the crowns, and details and details and details.

Believe me, we exasperate our competition with our vertically integrated ultra efficient process. It's a military operation in it's efficiency.




Fireplaces, radiators, cantilevered countertops, wide plank floors - on time, on budget.




The key to what we do is two fold - one, I'm diversely talented with a good eye and a pretty good appetite for risk-taking, and two, it's our team. I mean, I have developed a team that is motivated, quality-conscious, forward-thinking, and always improving - we don't have a weak link in the chain. And, as opposed to say that going-nowhere-fast Bethel Farms project where everyone is just trying to milk the cow for as long as possible (check out their Cottage here - you have to wonder what Irace Architecture was smoking when he designed this one - unattractive from every vantage), our team of engineers, surveyors, excavators, painters, plumbers, electricians and dozens of other professionals have our best interest in mind, go the extra mile, understand the opportunity and position we occupy is based on a wide array of people doing their best work. It's not perfect work - but it's work done with a good attitude, with attention to detail, with respect for me and my customers.


I mean, you got to love it - 60 little unique homes scattered about in the woods, hardly there. It's such a modest proposition - build small well designed homes, stand behind your work, keep experimenting with architecture and materials. Keep the prices low.


Famous sliding barn door above.
Big window of one of the bedrooms.


And even our stairs to the basements look good. And some feedback -
"Thank you, we couldn't agree more. It's amazing what can happen with the right combination of talents. Thank you for your vision and expertise."

So, there you have it. It's 5:33am, I'm listening the BBC, the cats and dogs and baby and wife are sound asleep and it's just me and the creaking old house in Eldred, NY.

Feedback

Great feedback on 2 houses we are closing on soon -

"This has been an awesome time for us. Seriously. Thank you." (JD)

"Anyway...to put my 2 cents in: we LOVE our house and we really enjoy working with you both. We have no regrets and we just can't wait to see and to live in the final result :)" (DM)

"Hi... went up this weekend - everything looks fantastic! i can't get over how beautifully everything is coming together (not that i had any doubts). You have far exceeded my expectation (which is not an easy thing to do)." (GB)

Now that's what I am talking about. A little holiday love.

New RockHouse Owner Feedback

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.

Farm 9 Feedback

A nice note from Mr and Mrs Carr - our first guest blogotorial.

"Home is where the heart is-

The day we found our Catskill Farm property, I was pregnant, we did not know it until our second visit when Chuck and my husband Stephen shook hands on the deal.
It is so interesting to me how both our baby and our home are so inter-connected. They say babies bring luck!

We would come up from the city nearly every weekend (I know every bathroom stop on the way) to collaborate with Chuck and check the progress. It was an incredible process because it was pretty effortless, Chuck got where we were going with everything and helped make our vision come alive. As the weeks and months passed the race was on to see which would come first the baby or the house. They were neck in neck all the way.

Our due date was March 28, but our beautiful daughter Hadley decided to arrive on March 4, funny enough our house closing is hopefully going to be scheduled for
March 28 (I say hopefully because although the building process was as fast as the speed of light, the banks are tending to take more time these days, in a way building the house seemed faster than applying for the mortgage).

We would like to thank Chuck and everyone involved in building our home and we mean everyone! We will spend many years raising our daughter there, tending to the organic vegetable gardens we plan on planting and cherishing all the memories to come.

Our new home will be called Canterbury Farm (It is lovely tradition in England to name your home) named after my husbands beloved family townhouse on Canterbury Road in in London where some of his fondest childhood memories took place.

Cheers to everyone at The Catskill Farms!

Christine, Stephen and Hadley Carr"

Drut in Dubai

On occasion, Catskill Farms will build a house from a design brought to us by a prospective customer, as opposed to one of our turn of the century inspired catskill farmhouses or cottages. Benoist, who is totally French, brought us a design for a 2400 sq ft modern industrial home with 30 ft high ceilings, a large clerestory, polished concrete floors. His home was on 35 acres in Barryville NY.

Benoist is an art dealer of mid-century French antiques, and this photo he sent me is from his latest antiques roadshow that took him to Dubai. He claims he's not wearing anything underneath this mid-eastern garb.

"I Never Thought I'd Build"

Snowing like crazy up here today in Sullivan County - from what I've heard, the City is getting some snow too. One of the first good storms we've had all year.

We used to sell finished homes. Well, to be honest, we used to try to sell finished homes. Over the course of the first 3 years, we would buy up some small parcels of land, design a house, build the house, and then market and sell the house. Like an old guy in India said to me - "it's easier to buy then to sell" - , and in our case, it was easier to dream the design and build the house, then it was to find a buyer up here in the middle of nowhere. Because we had less than zero $$$, everyday we owned the house took us closer to the bankruptcy precipice. Well, anyway, those days are over - we are not imminently going out of business (although it is always only one big bad decision away), and we don't have any houses on the shelf anymore. Lisa and I even went so far as to furnish our unsold homes - it's interesting what you can do on a limited budget - actually, almost more interesting than a 'sky's the limit approach'.

We have had so much interest in our homes over the last 14 months that we no longer have any finished homes for sale - they get snapped up during the construction process. Again, what used to happen was we would start to build and when the house started to take shape, more people could visually the house, and themselves sitting by the fire, and snap them up.

Then it even progressed past that, to where customers starting buying from houses on the drafting table - and the refrain was always the same ' I never thought I'd be building a house.'

For the most part, our customers are youngish. Professionals in their 30's or 40's, quite busy with their jobs and lives, so the thought of engaging in a building process never entered their mind while searching for that getaway home.

"Building' is a scary endeavor, and has left more than a few participants licking their wounds long afterward. It takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, it's expensive, it's full of financial surprises, and it's never done soon enough. Combine that with being 2 hours away from the job site, and the recipe for disaster is apparent.

Catskill Farms has taken the best of the process, eliminated the pitfalls, and created a process that works for our busy demographic. The primary reason it works is because we are honest - we live up to our word, and fulfill our obligation. We also take care of the gray areas - the area that is most annoying for people building homes - 'this isn't included', 'that's not in the contract', etc... We definitely use those phrases, but very hesitantly and only in obvious situations. I'm from Lancaster PA, and even though any businessperson who is around for any length of time has to make hard decisions, for the most part, we shoot straight.

I think the keys to our approach are illuminating (and also a trade secret, but all of our imitators are out of business by now) -

1. We take money out of the process. Most build projects require the homeowner to remit payments 10/20/30 times during the process, so every conversation at the job site is clouded by who charged too much for an extra or is asking for payment when the milestone is only partially reached and/or who is late paying a bill. These discussions and subsequent grandstanding can really delay and disturb progress and schedules. In a Catskill Farms build, money is discussed at the beginning, and at the end when we sell the house. In between there may be some minor upgrades and allowance reconciliation but by no means is it front and center of every discussion. So the process is more fruitfully centered around design and dreams and products and choices rather than the $25,000 owed to the builder but not yet released by the bank.

Of course, we don't survive every process looking perfect, but I am well aware that the new homeowner who went from dream to sleeping in their bedrooms or lounging in front of the fire in less then 5 months really has it a lot better then they even acknowledge or know.

2. We stay on budget. If someone wants a $300k house, and we agree on the big picture specifications, at the end of the job it costs $300k. It's unheard of in building, and the reason it can happen is because, as I mentioned earlier, we just take care of the grey areas. We also give good allowances, so our customers have lots of options for tile, stone, kitchens, paint, siding, roofs, vanities, and faucets without runneth over the budget. In sum, our goal is not to squeeze a few extra pennies or dollars out of the customer. Many times though, we would be well within our rights to do so. Move this, change this, add this, can you do it this way. Why we can do it, with no extra sweat off our backs is because we are a young successful company and feel its worth every extra penny we spend to finish the job quickly, with quality, and add another architecture gem to the Sullivan County landscape and move onto the next one. Only rarely, maybe once, did we have a customer who upgraded something well outside our allowances and refused to pay for it. So lesson learned, it won't happen again, and we moved on.

Just as important is the customers role in the process. Serious attention to what they want to spend, diligent processes to find product either within their allowances or amenable to their cash flow, and making decisions on time, - i.e., knowledge that this is a unique arrangement that takes their serious participation to succeed - or, more simply, it takes 2 to tango.

3. To borrow a term from the industrial revolution, we have vertically integrated, eliminating the middle man everywhere we can (is this supposed to be 'middleperson'?). The architecture cost is 1/4 of hiring an architect, the higher transaction and financial costs of building new are non-existent, most times there is no real estate fee involved since we are doing our own selling, and the weekly change orders and re-designs are done for free each weekend I meet with the homeowners at the house.

4. We have created a process we call 'custom-lite' - meaning Catskill Farms and the prospective homeowners collaborate on a design under way, collaborate on the house placement on the land, collaborate lightly on the lighting design, and collaborate more fully on the fun stuff, - tile, fireplace stone, paints, stains, kitchens, counter tops, interior doors and door knobs, faucets, etc... Because Catskill Farms is now the veteran of more than 2 dozen country homes, we have figured out how to tailor our process around the busy lives of our customers so they don't feel like they have another stressful fulltime job. Our clients are talented with a good design sense, and so are we - which makes for unique homes.

5. Mostly, we can pull this off because, while not perfect, we are competent, work hard, stay focused, and through thick and thin have our clients best interests placed ahead of everything else.

6. However, all of this is hogwash without the basic truth of our homes - we are able to build new homes that have a soul - an almost impossible goal. The clients who say 'I never thought I would be building', have looked and searched and dreamed of that old house with memories and generations tatooed in the bones of the structure. Catskill Farms, with the help of some very talented clients, has been producing new construction that feels like it's been there a long time. And when you can do that, there is no reason to buy an old wreck of a house where every weekend is a new problem.

The best compliment we get, and we get it alot, is when someone mistakes our new homes for a 'great renovation'.

Still snowing, 5:34 pm, most of our 70 homeowners probably thinking about picking up their cars and coming up to their getaway.