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.

BUSY Weekend

Appointments at 11, 1, 3 and 5 today.

Appointments all day tomorrow.

2 new customers signed up this past week.

Courtney and Bronson are in the house, signing their contracts for a house currently under contruction.

Mike and Natalie are in the house, sending up a deposit for TBD land and cottage package for the future.

Vicky and Thadeus showed some serious interest - so much so, I'm presently waiting for the phone to ring.

Richard, a musician and insurer of fine art, is real close to reserving his spot, selecting Albert's barn as a live work play studio on 3+ acres.

Rock & Roll Catskill Farms.

Buzz Phrase

Funny, I was looking through some websites of developers, real estate flippers, etc... and kept noticing the same trend - a trend to put as many trendy catch phrases into one description as possible.

It used to be an organization would focus in and master a direction, but these days, I guess you got throw the kitchen sink at it -

Here are some examples -

"A New Old Green Modular home" (this one catches every buzz word ever coined)

"Architect designed Custom Rustic 2 story farmhouse style "- for anyone who knows anything about area real estate, Rustic/custom/farmhouses are a couple of buzz phrases that have worked for their respective originators - but for me, who would design it if not an architect.

In the end, the same old mistakes - buzz words instead of a real product, marketing instead of a value, and houses priced where the spreadsheet calculations look interesting, instead of where the real market is.

For us, we now know we have a corner on the market, because our homes are priced incredibly low for the value we are giving - look across upstate NY for similar homes, and 1, you won't find any, and if you do, they will carry a higher price tag.

Good advice for our imitators - a good business model respects the customers intelligence, and by producing the best homes we can at the lowest price possible, we do what we can to create to most value possible - and as I repeat, our best customers are those that are most educated in the local real estate landscape.

It is then, as Gayle said, a real 'no brainer'. If only buzz words and phrases got the job done.

A cool mellow weekend planned up here in the Catskills - must of got 75 calls and emails after the Post article.

Cojones

Dean at Cottage 13 wrote us a nice email earlier this week --

"It's always great to come up and see the progress- I can't believe it's almost finished- it really is like my Mom said, like walking into a big hug."

Definitely more encouraging than being verbally assaulted by a pair of homeowners with some ill-conceived grievance or another at Town Hall.

With only 10 recorded real estate transactions in Sullivan County above $240k since the beginning of December, Catskill Farms is selling more than 40% homes successfully selling over the past two months. That's pretty amazing - 40% of the homes being sold are being sold by Catskill Farms and our incredibly talented team - from James who takes the heat for everything in the office, to Curtis who takes the heat for everything in the field, to Juan who more or less gets it done at the sites regardless of what it takes, to Deborah the gifted bookkeeper, to Anouk who helps me manage the myriad hurdles of any given day. And then there is me - more or less responsible for all the problems, victories, and failures experienced over the past 5 years, since we built our first new old house in Sullivan County. And there have been some real doozies - some real high victories like selling more homes by far than any other pretender over the past few years with just the advantage of an original good idea, a lot of risk-taking, and a lot of hard work to the extreme other end like over-leveraged parting of our dream homes.

So, since we have been up here we have been taking huge risks - I mean, who did I think I was to try and build some cool houses in the middle of nowhere while living in a little shack without dependable electric or heat, and stray wild animals running in and out unexpectedly and certainly uninvited? Debt up to our eyeballs but our eye on the ball, we pioneered the new old house idea in this region, we pioneered the idea that a country home did not have to be a wreck of a house wrapped in a romantic notion of the fixer upper. We pioneered the idea the the real estate MLS was not the only was to sell a home locally, and then we really opened her up by producing a small, affordable, 2 bedroom 1300 sq ft perfect cottage - against all the conventional wisdom that said 'you need 3 bedrooms', ' you need 2 1/2 baths' , 'you need a bonus room', and 'you definitely need a garage' - always ending with - 'if you ever want to sell these houses.'

50 houses later - 50 houses. In 4 years. In the middle of nowhere. With a deepening recession making it rough since late 2006. Sure, that's when the bad news started dominating the newspapers, way back in 2006 - it seems like it is bad now, but it's all relative and it was just as hairy in late '06 with the first headlines about stalling sales, that continued through 2007, and then just kept getting worse through 2008 - and through it all we kept finding customers (or they kept finding us), we kept getting the construction financing, our customers kept getting their financing, and we just kept getting it done.

We sold 13 homes over the past 10 months and while that may not seem like a lot, it's about 3x more per year then we had been selling - which once again stressed every aspect of the business - legal, engineering, architecture, construction, financing, etc...

Then we pioneered the mini-house - under 1100 - which is proving to be more than enough house for part-timers.

I'm not saying all this to be boastful or a braggart cause lord knows it takes a team to pull this off and I just happen to be captain. But we are selling houses successfully, at prices at the same level as last year, when all acros the country prices and demand are plummetting.

We did three things right - we understood a market opportunity, we successfully reached out and educated that market niche, and we worked like crazy to get the house built. And I guess there is one other thing not to be overlooked - we kept it real, - really real - original, unique, one of a kind. And that is rare in this day and age of the 'easy way' first.

And now to really show off our cojones, we have embarked on the construction of 3 new spec homes - a spec home being a home financed by the developer/builder without a buyer lined up. It's a testament to our credibility as a company that a bank would even lend us the money to do such a foolish thing - but doing foolish things against conventional wisdom has definitely paid the bills for us the past few years.

And then, before we even had a chance to keep the houses under wraps (they were supposed to be top secret) -Erin traveled up from NYC, selecting the first design of our new mid-century ranch series. Hands up cause Erin's in the House.

Introducing the Mid-Century Ranch - once we bring back the Ranch, we are going to attempt an even more challenging task, bringing Michelob back to the mainstream.

Here she is -

The Sketch -

The Reality-

5.7 acres, way up on a hill looking into the hills of PA, 1 mile from Barryville. 975 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, walkout basement, fireplace and big deck. The Ranch.

And Cottage 18, at 900 sq ft, also has 2 bedrooms, a stream, couple of porches and lots of other details that make life sweet.

The sketch -

The House, taken from sketched inspiration to real life house.

Selling for $225k.

And Cottage 21 - modeled after Cottage 8, which got so many rave reviews that we just had to do another iteration. This 1325 sq ft house overlooks a great pond, and will take a real arts and crafts approach to details and finishes.

And it overlooks a pond across the road. Selling for $340k.

And since we are talking about keeping it real and how originality is an important ingredient to our success, and originality can't really be faked - how about this piece of literary work from a local competitor builder? http://kenozalake.blogspot.com/ - started about 2 months ago by the group that has been unable to sell much at all over the past 4 years.

Now granted, this blog from Kenoza Lake Estates in Kenoza Lake NY, in the western end of Sullivan County, might have just accidently picked the exact same tones and design for his blog - but I'm afraid it's doubtful - and regrettably, it's not about the blog design, but actually about the value produced and being offered. Words, as they say, are cheap (which with everything I got to say, would still add up to a healthy piggy bank).

Baloney

I say baloney.

I say that the finanical panic and crash has very little to do with real life. I say all the headlines, media, gov't officials and the like scaring the bejesus out of us are mostly wrong, and all us normal people not dealing in commerical paper, financial ponzi schemes, get rich schemes, and short term bonus' for longterm disaster schemes are actually not too bad off. This past week I borrowed a bunch of money from my bank to continue building the 6 homes we have in contract, looked into buying a new truck ($7500 off sticker, with incentives) and received a credit line increase from Bank of America. Banks are lending, don't be fooled. Just the rules have changed - you got be qualified, you got to have good credit, and a steady job doesn't hurt.

What I haven't seen is a denial of credit, a reduction of my line of credit, non-existent auto loans, etc... Forbes has an article out stating more bank to consumer lending occurred in Sept '08 than Sept '07. So what gives - the statistics don't even show we are in a recession.

We definitely live in the era of hysteria and catastrophe. It's what sells, it's the new 'sex' (playing off the old adage that sex sells). Hysteria and catastrophe is the quickest way to the bank for many industries.

So what does this mean to me, and my customers - I'm smart, and they are smart, and with our team of good attorneys, good banks, houses full of value, adequate comps, and well-qualified homeowners - I only have one thing to say to all the end of worlders -

Eat my shorts. Life goes on.

And if you got the dough, its a great time to buy something, or build something, because all the cocky salespeople and customer service reps are working harder than ever to make sure your process and purchase is satisfactory, and to anyone who has consumed or purchased anything over the past 24 months, it's a great change.

The world has righted itself -

More Construction and Great Design

Cottage 9 Interior painting - Thank you Tito.

Cottage 15 Septic installation - Thank you Pete and Casey.

Porches being built at Farmhouse 10 - Thanks Greg and Dave.

The barn at Albert's house going up quick - Thanks Mike and crew.

And the roof at Cottage 14. Thanks Edwin for this Biscayne Blue beauty.

But mostly, thanks Gavin, Emily, Gayle, Albert, Dean, Jeanne, Deb, Nick and Albert for presently building with us.

Although I guess if I am doing shout-outs, I might as well cover them all from the beginning - thanks phil, karla, Angie, Richard, Stan, Leslie, Andy, michael, dukhui, paul, frank, ellen, nancy, itzak, andrew, robin, sasha, tracy, kevin, julia, katrina, crystal, hugh, jasmine, tammy, cheri, matt, chris, david, mauricio, christine, gavin, emily, pablo, anna, leah, rob, jeanne, deb, charles, suzanne, steve, luba, sarah, dennis, shannah, erik, julia and husband, benoist, monte, todd and tracy.

I'm sure this good intentional gratitude will bite me in the ass cause I forgot someone - but it was a good college try, i think.

Johnny Goes Marching On.

Note - these pics are only a week or two older than the last progress photos - It's not that hard to fire on all cylinders occassionally, but day after day, week after week, month after month - in the middle of nowhere - is a real accomplishment. I'm not braggin - this is a true team effort to kick it like we do - a team of engineers, architects, road builders, excavators, framers, roofers, siding guys, porch guys, well drillers, septic guys, trim guys, landscaper guys, flooring guys, painting guys, sheetrock guys, suppliers of lumber, tile, kitchens, etc...

It's a hell of the team, and I'm proud to be drill sargeant - it's boot camp, everyday, all day, never ending. Most people just get tired of me and move onto less profitable but more casual environments.

Here's the McInnes Cottage, really taking shape with 1x 10 beveled pine siding stained Cordovan Brown. One coat in the factory, one coat in the field. I'm not sure if blogged this before, but we found some cool ass old school big iron strapped hinged doors.

Today I was talking to the owner, Gavin, and I said you need a big ass fan for that big ass room and then just for the fun of it I googled 'big ass fans' and there is a company, believe it, named the Big Ass Fan Company.

Frontal shot.Rear shot.

Then super beautiful Cottage #9, sitting in the woods, sitting on the dock of the bay, nestled (boy I hate that word) amidst the trees, old stone walls, big trees, and a lake down below. This house had a deal going, then the deal fell apart due to 'acts of god' but then we put humpty dumpty back together again in a few hours. A new deal in a few hours - I mean, this house is nice. 1300 square feet of perfection - maybe i've used that line before, but damn we have good taste, mixed with a lot of house placement experience, mixed with a lot of construction experience.
Here's little Cottage 15 - a sweet house selling to Gayle who said it was a 'no brainer' when she pluncked down a $10k non-refundable deposit and said 'put me on the waiting list' while standing in the middle of a forest with her friend Jamie. This house only started 8 weeks ago and now she's already struggling with the lighting and painting choices.

And Dean, who somehow through charm and savviness unloaded his florida house so he could push up the move in date for Cottage 13. This house is nicccce. Hello living large.

AAAAnd Cottage 14, Jeanne and Deb, with 2 big bedrooms, 2 full baths, a glorious kitchen with cathedral ceiling. A very unique house. but hey, that our thing - keep it real, keep it unique, keep it special. All very counterintuitive in construction where repitition makes perfect (perfectly boring if you ask me).

And Albert's house, that we are crackin on while he is in budapest following the progress of his farm on the hill. Hopefully his mag wheeled black range rover with the circular beatles tunes can make it up the driveway - if not, he can call the local snow plow truck taxi, meaning me, who lives just across the street and down the hill.

I mean, frickin right, this has been a beautiful 8 weeks of weather. Perfect Catskill weather, with night temps at 35 and daytimes at 72, with big blue skies with rebellious cumulus clouds playing raucously in the big forever skies. Pic snapped at around 6pm.

Albert's farm from afar, with big trees shading the courtship spots, the makeout maples, the horny hemlocks and pornographic pines.
And his barn - the green barn with radiant, solar, and thermal- that will be a music studio where pickin will be playin on Saturday nights, with the big woodstove cooking, and the musicians brewing a magical brew of music.

That's all for now. It's just about time for dinner. 2 martinis. 12 hours workday. 2 mile run. Now that's the way I like it.

2 hours on the Market

So, on Cottage 9 we had two guys who signed up real early and signed a contract and all that jazz but just before construction one of them professed a dying ember of emotion for the other so since they were breaking up, they didn't want the house.

Because it was so early in the process (before construction started) and since I have no desire being part of a fight over assets, we gave them back their earnest money and began remarketing the house.

In 2 hours it was sold (going into contract) at full price. Now that's pretty amazing.

Shake your Groove Thing, Yeah Yeah

Groovin' loose or heart to heart

We put in motion every single part

Funky sounds wall to wall

We're bumpin' booties, havin' us a ball, y'all

Shake your groove thing,

shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah

Show 'em how we do it now

Shake your groove thing, shake your groove thing, yeah, yeah

Show 'em how we do it now

We are really shakin' it now, probably building more houses than anyone else in the county (definitely more well-designed houses than anyone else). It's an amazing thing to say since 1, we are in an historic recession, and 2, we thought we were just a small little boutique business with a good taste. Well, what did we know? Obviously, not a whole hell of a lot. Or else having good taste is rare these days.

Here's Cottage #9 - the only house we have under construction that is not spoken for and reserved. In fact the first house in more than 14 months that we've been able to secretly construct so some deserving person or family could buy a nearly complete home. This house has been kept more secret than the Republican VP pick, and hopefully, more fully vetted and thought-out.

Cottage #9 is a lot of fun, since we have no constraints or limitations on our creative bents, and this house is really going to be perfect - 6 acres, 1300 sq ft, 2 huge bedrooms, fireplace, big ass deck, front covered porch, walk out frickin basement, security, whole house audio, and a dozen other things that make a house perfect. And yes the land is included for the offering price of $338k. And so are the 120 yr old stone walls, the perfect setting, the circular driveway, and brand new everything.

The whole house has been wired, plumbed and heated and we are just waiting for the windows and then off to the races.
And the stone wall I was braggin about, seen from the house's rear.

And now some pics of houses in motion -

Dean's Cottage 13, just a wooded lot 3 weeks ago, just a foundation 2 weeks ago, now nearly a beautiful cottage on 6 acres, tucked nearly perfectly in the trees, rocks and ledges.

And the last cottage in our small project named Highland Farms.


Here is Cottage 14, Deb and Jeanne's house, on 5+ acres, outside of Yulan, NY. Foundation in, lumbered delivered, retaining wall of huge stones selected and placed pretty perfectly, and we are off to the races on yet another pretty perfect home.

I mean seriously - 1350 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, fireplace, 2 porches, wide plank floors, picking out colors and stones and faucets, and vanities and kitchens and colors and stains. 4 months from lonely piece of wooded land to sleeping in the bedroom and bringing your laundry up from the city for some clothes washing in peace.

Lumber load delivered, ready for the framers tomorrow.

And then up to the top of the hill, on 10 acres, sits Farmhouse 10. This house, modeled after Farm 9, which was modeled after Farm 8, has been really a favorite - so much so that I had to turn someone down the other day who wanted a similar design.

Foundation in, lumber ready, sun setting. On your marks, get set, GO.

And then lovely Cottage 15, just taking it's first baby steps. First come concrete, then comes frame, then come the roof in a baby carraige. This house has it all, except waste, redundancy, and boring spaces like a 'bonus room' 'grand foyer' and all those suburban nonsense terms.

Now, if you want to do a little test, track back a few blog posts and you will see how quickly we really do move - how we really do 'shake our groove thing'. It was just 2 weeks ago that none of these foundations even existed, and now, within 10 days, all of them will be framed and roofed in.

I mean, no wonder people hate me - that's a lot bullwhippin', slave-drivin', no nonsense, no excuses, no bullshit, take no prisoners approach to building homes. How else do you build 40 country homes in 4 years in the middle of nowhere with no selection or depth in vendors/subcontractors/suppliers, and introduce over 100 adults to country living at its best?

Late Summer Weekend

The final weekend of the summer. Most of the Catskill Farms homeowners up for the weekend, stretching out and cooling it for an extra day this weekend. Barbeques, wood splitting, a little gardening and landscaping.

My weekends start out at 5 or so on Friday, leaving work a little early. I was a NY Times guy for over 15 years, but about a 1/2 yr ago I began augmenting it with the the WSJ weekend edition - both, at least for the moment, are a lot of fun and a great compliment to the weekend, filling in those hours between golf, work, strategizing, and the inevitable honey do list.

Lisa usually makes a good weekend dinner, even in these late months of pregnancy and serves it up hot to me, the breadwinner and man of the house. Lisa and I prefer and are more comfortable in the traditional roles of man and woman - me earning and bringing home the bacon, and she barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

Just got some bad news - Lady Storm, the dog we adopted when her old owner passed along, has cancer and is slowly fading out on us. I mean, we knew this was going to be the drill since she was an old dog with bad legs and sordidly bad breath. But she's been good to us - low maintenence, fun to be with, awfully touchy about the cats playing with her tale - little ruby and big storm - reminds Lisa and me of the show Rob and Big. I'll post some pics of the two of them shortly. It'll be sad, but jeez leweez, I can't think of a better way to go out then being pampered by Lisa for the last 9 months of your life - much better than what was going to be her fate - slowly starving as neighbors forgot to feed her, or sent to the pound to fend for herself. Old Storm - a real good dog.

It's been a great month of weather of here. Since the beginning of August nighttime temps around 45 and daytimes never exceeding a sunny 80. This is prime time Catskills - beautiful weather, no traffic, no noise - just the family, the house, the pets and a little well earned respite from all the overachieving I'm sure most 2nd homeowners do most days of their lives.

Cheers - happy Labor Day and hasta luego Summertime.

Vacation and Parties and Observations

It's always hard to get hard and fast information when making a big decision but I have had two observations about our homes as of late - no one in five years has ever wanted to resell one of the homes they have bought from us, and after spending an hour today in my new restored farmhouse perusing area real estate websites at existing houses for sale between $225k and $335k, it's not a big surprise we are kicking it and killing it like we are.

I mean, having nothing to do with our homes, it's not that rare of a story to find a family's situation change, it's priority altered, etc.... that causes them to rethink the country house idea. I have seen it a few times, where a nice house sells, and then in 6 months or so it's back on the market, - the purchasing family a victim of a romantic daydream that didn't match true priorities. However, our 34 homes remain with the original homeowners - you would at least think there would be a divorce or something, -

It has been a question that has been popping up in some of the interviews we are having with folks hoping to get on our waiting list - has anyone tried to resell their home, and how did that go? Answer, simply - no, no one has tried to resell their home, but judging by the fact that we continue to sell all our homes (mini-houses, cottages and farmhouses) at higher prices than last year, I think the value proposition is pretty strong (as long as the sellers avoid paying 8% commissions like the local realtors think is fair - and don't ask them their advertising budget!!). At times everyone in my company feels like nobody likes us because we can't be perfect every second, but my god, we build houses ahead of schedule, on budget, stand behind our work, design with a ton of style and have passed along homes that are holding their value in a real estate plunge - I mean, OMG, what more can I do?

For country folk, Lisa and I like to travel, although logistically it's not always easy, since the airport is 2+ hrs away. Although we have hit Poland, Berlin, Munich, Florence, Rome, Capri and California over the past few years, we return year after year to Tulum Mexico. I think we have traveled there 5 times over the past 5 years. 2 hours south of Cancun, it's quiet, it's beautiful, and it's close.

Here's our hut on the beach. Rents for $140 a night, right on the beach.

Here's my best imitation of Evita or Lenin.

Picture of a Sullivan County rainbow snapped by Lisa.

And a picture of NYC ex-pats who started out as weekenders and eventually gave up the city life to make a go of it up here. That's me, end row, far right. I think this pic was taken at Lisa b-day party last year at Lot 45, Chapin Estate. Or measured another way, 3 houses ago.

And at the dinner table during the party. What's neat about Sullivan County is the ability to ignore everyone, stay close to home and cook at home, or on other days, venture out and find a very unique under-the-radar fast set of diverse NYC professionals.

Fire Away

"Well, you're the real tough cookie
With the long history
Of breaking little hearts,
Like the one in me
That's O.K.,
lets see how you do it
Put up your dukes, lets get down to it!

Hit Me With Your Best Shot!
Fire Away!"

Pat Benatar sums up this world tumult pretty succinctly. Stock markets around the world looking a little scary, suburban housing prices being pummelled daily, headline comparisions with the Great Depression, and we can't keep up with all the calls requesting info for our homes.

In fact, for someone who spends quite a bit a money on advertising it's distressing to get these daily inquiries into our homes and not have the time to get back to them - since this is the most important facet of our business. We got no land, we got no homes for sale, - what can I say.

What's exciting about these waiting list is the fact that it gives us a little breathing room, and allows me to hire some talent, invest not only in land and architecture, but also some people who can help us grow a little, experiment a lot, and continue to enhance the architecture of Sullivan County. At the moment we have a few new designs under development and we are buying a few complimentry pieces of land.

I mean, I have been bragging up the fact that our waiting list is growing in an inverse relationship to the economy - the uglier it gets, the better we are doing. Although totally true, it was also like I felt that if I kept repeating it it would continue to be true. And then I realized - I SELL COTTAGES WITH 5 ACRES FOR LESS THAN $325K. It's a no brainer -

We got a lot of rain the last two days, I mean a lot of rain. Hard rain. Big drops. Definitely the type of rain that makes us look foolish pretty quick if we get caught unprepared or with our pants down.

Here's the stream at Cottage 7 flowing pretty good around the moss, ferns, rocks, and grasses.


And then the pond across the street from our project outside Eldred - this pond fed waterfall then leads to a brook that runs behind our houses, - Cottage 5, Farm 9 and C0ttage 6. Amazingly, we are now planning Cottage 16.

Here are some more Cottage 7 details. Stained french doors, radiator, wide plank floors and a wainscotting powder room with a window looking out into the woods.

And their fireplace - large logs, large stone, and large living.

Kitchen is pretty unique, with a custom pantry with beadboard sides and an antique screen door, open shelves and an apron farm sink.

And a romantic profile of this stately little cottage in Yulan NY, just a couple of miles from the Delaware River.
And some old school barn doors with strap hinges and gate lever.
I was shopping in Woodstock and Stone Ridge the other day looking to expand our business and the same fact is true over there as is true over here - the architecture over there is just as underwhelming as the architecture over here.

God Bless all the badly design houses out there - it really makes our life easier than it should be.