Farm 57- Farmhouse in Field, Callicoon NY, SuCo

One of our favorite designs, set in an open field with big views, a few miles from Callicoon NY, in the Beechwoods section, in SuCo (Sullivan county).  I have this thought that I'm actually the one who coined SuCo, but like Churchill's reputed coining of "Iron Curtain", we will never really be able to verify.

Presenting Farm 57.

Here's a version we just finished.



3 beds, 3 baths.  We are going to finish off the basement, which pushes this house up to almost 2400 sq ft.  That's a big house for a small farmhouse.  With a rocking chair front porch, and back deck and screened porch, the outside living adds another 50% to the home, let alone the flat and gently sloping fields abutting it, a perfect palette for badminton, croquet, and other yard games.

What's neat about this home is how tidy the exterior is, with sharp lines, and rubbernecking gables.

Looking to get $479k and worth every penny.  This home will be ready by the end of 2020.

Pandemic Life in the Catskills

Was at the grocery store, where the line to checkout stretched back an entire aisle.  It was clear that while it was orderly, it wouldn't have taken much for complete order to break down and panic to set in.  Panic is just under the surface.

Of course, when you are standing in a line that stretches down a whole aisle, and that aisle happens to be the treats and snacks aisle, and you are hungry, you end up with purchases like the Oatmeal Creme Pie 12 pack.  Turns out, they are a lot smaller than they used to be, and when i couldn't stop eating them, I threw the rest of the box away, but I didn't just throw the individually wrapped pies away since there was no way for sure to guarantee I wouldn't go dumpster diving for them later, I unwrapped the 5 remaining before tossing them in the garbage can.

It reminds me of when I used to smoke and couldn't quit (long time ago) - I'd buy a pack, and then throw the rest in the garbage, but would invariably go back and fish them out, even if I took the time to break them in half.  Only way to ensure no fishing was to ruin them by pouring water into the pack, or throwing the whole god damned pack out a moving vehicle, which wasn't even fail-safe since I could go back looking for them if not too far away.  Addiction, glad the only ones I have left are less harmful.

I also ended up with Doritos, Gatorade 12 pack, and a few other notables.

I didn't know bird watching was cliche, but appears Im not the only one sitting around watching birds, researching their type, and naming them.  This red bird's name evovled from 'Red' to "Lipstick'. The bird feeders have really become a hit after a slow start.  I seem to have 3 or four types of birds -

Red, or Lipstick for the Cardinal

Tufty, or Mullet for the Tufted Titmouse

Sunny for the yellow one.

Nutty, for the white breasted nuthatch.

This Lilienthal Berlin watch was really impulsive, which was interesting primarily for 3 reasons.  1, I don't wear watches, 2, I've been on the down slope random consumerism, 3, the instagram ad targeted me precisely.

Talk about big data nailing me.   The style, price, need, etc... hit me I guess where I was most susceptible, and now I'm a watch wearer.  While I'm not totally excited about being profiled like this, since they nailed it, I'm ok with it.  I've actually noticed the ads and catalogs I've been served  & mailed lately have been been pretty right on, which I respect, since it must mean that my consumer interests have been refined, curated, and now have a specific identifying trait, which I like to name Tasteful, Restrained, Expensive but not too, Discretionary but Not Dumb, aka TRENDD.  Wow, an acronym without even trying - most times you have to turn yourself in knots to get it to work.

I have noticed now that it doesn't have a light, is not glow in the dark and doesn't show the date.

After I got my new toaster - see previous posts - I started eating a lot of toast.  Which I like with butter and jam, and I wondered why the jam tasted funny and about 3 weeks in looks like my 'jam' was actually sunday topping, sugar free no less.  My ex always says, in moments like this, 'and how did you become a millionaire?" or "and how do you run a $10m company?"  It's a fair point which I ask at times too.

Was out on Luxton Lake Road yesterday, and had to stop by and take a picture of this 2009 beauty we built.  Just a great house.   Less than 1000 sq ft originally, then expanded with the build out of the basement.

And a mini-barn going up in Narrowsburg.

Moving, Paris Hilton, Old School Smut and the Voice of the Virus

How can't you be excited when you find your 20 year old copy of Paris Hilton's sex tape (CD actually).  Perversely, I'm listening to Taylor Swift's Reputation - it's not bad. I like her.

And one of the very first, if not the very first subdivisions I did - in Callicoon NY, up on Bayer Road.  I bought 30 acres of big view land from George B, who was an old timer who owned a dilapidated home.  He was a horse trainer at the Monticello race track - old school layered on old school.  When we were renovating the old house that came with the 30 acres, I found his smut stash - literally 60 magazines - Playboy, Oui, Pin-up and a bunch of other classics.  He was a real smut connoisseur.   The comical part of it, in the middle of the the 2 foot stack was a Playgirl - just testing it out I guess.  Good for him.  Eric G, I know you are blushing.

Anyways, my point is, besides my savings bonds and my Paris Hilton tape and few other bits of nostalgia, I came across this.   And you know what, the articles in Playboy are awesome.

I've been inspired by this pandemic.  I don't mean in a happy way, I just mean it's got my thinking juices flowing, and that gets my writing juices going, because at the root of it all, I'm a writer locked in a builder's body!  

That's not really true.  I like building - it's super challenging.  I think my energies are flowing because this pandemic is the real thing, and I think I have a good business mind and it is sparking a constant idea generation of what comes next, what come now, what comes longer term - I like the added risk element.  I'll tell you the least interesting time to be in business - boom times, when even the dumb prosper.  Give me some challenges to navigate.  I'm being facetious of course, but there is a grain of truth to it.

Let Construction Ignite the Rebound - lohud.com

What's Next for the Catskills : Boom or Bust- River Reporter

I can't decide how to feel about the future.  I'm getting such mixed signals.  We are busy as hell and people are calling and writing all day long.  And the stock market is stupid - I sold everything I had left today, after liquidating quite a bit at the beginning of the year, and then switching the remaining portfolio weight to a more conservative mix.  Now I'm out, except for my 529.  There just is zero reasons this market isn't going down.

The whole thing just feels like a little bit of denial, that the hope for a quick rebound is clouding decisions and people who haven't been harmed too much are searching for the buy in price and those who have been harmed/closed are banking on a quick rebound.  From a stock market perspective, all you got to do is study the market twists and turns of 1929 to understand how weird and deceptive it can be.  Up 1000%, drops 50%, up in the perfect dead cat bounce deception luring people back in, then a drop of 85% and 2 decades to return to breakeven.

I guess for me the risk is to be fooled by all the interest currently to ramp up production.  I'm just not sure how deep this goes, and how badly the banks get hit.

It's always fascinating, this lane of ours we operate in.  It's so narrow, but we mine it, harvest it, tend it, and it always produces our 8-16 homes a year from our resilient NYC buyers.  And in times like this, why not go with the guy whose been doing it for 20 years?  Why would you get involved with a company on their 3rd home, betting they won't be there when you need them in 2 years?  Tougher the times, the better we look.

Gotta get going - the oven timer is going off, and that means my 3 beers in the freezer are ready to come out.  But who am I kidding, I'm going to have a rye.

The real question is - how many people are, right now, cooling it with a drink, in a home from Catskill Farms, feeling safe and cozy?

New videos of Catskill Farms

Our simple homes put to classical music.  They are turning out great.

Videos - 

Moving Day - Eldred to Wurtsboro

Eldred is no metropolis, and Wurtsboro isn't either.  But Wurtsboro is so much more centrally located for the radius of our work, and as a bonus is 30 minutes closer to Amanda, our Queen of design and administration and coordination.

Wurtsboro and the Rt 209 corridor is cool for a history buff like me because it runs parallel to the old D&H Canal system that moved product from Honesdale PA to Kingston NY and off to the Hudson River.  An insane man over nature, commerce at all costs effort of the 1820-1850's.  And by the time it was built and served a few years, it was outdated and being phased out by the train, a much quicker mode. 

I've kept a box - one I'm always concerned about where it is and what is in it - that I find on occasion as I clean out a closet and/or move.  I've lived a zig zaggy life so it's interesting to see what I have kept over the years.  It's not much, when you come down to it, but it's a good snapshot.

First, I have these US Bonds from the 80's and 90's that I'm most impressed I still have considering it's just a little envelope.   Mostly from my Mom, but one from my baseball coach back in 1982 when I played on an awesome little league baseball team.  I guess the idea is you buy them for half the face value, hold them for 30 years, and get face value plus.  Serious dough.  I'm going to give them to Lucas for his savings and chores account.

Take the time to turn your head for this one.  A note from a neighbor of property I owned in Lancaster PA.   He's complaining about the loud sex of my tenants.  Funny he didn't identify himself since it was clear who it was.  I think there was a followup letter to0.

Not great pictures, but a snap shot of the new digs.  There's 4 of us in the office and the dog.  The move went pretty well - big items on Monday, comps and printers tuesday, phones on Wednesday.

A shocking thing was discovered as we transferred our computers.  Through some oversight on the tech company's part, we hadn't been backing up our info since 2018, and when they went to transfer the data of the hard-drive, it failed.  The tech spent the night trying to remove the data, a lot of data, our entire business on one little hard-drive, that wasn't backed up and was now failing; I spent the night worried.

But they got it working and transferred.  I think what shook me up the most was the idea that this tech company failed to do it's most basic job - protect our data - while otherwise doing a great job keeping us up and running on a daily basis.  Because they did such a great job, we never would have considered they were failing to back up our data.

The Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, and how to prevent it from ever happening again is easy to engineer - but the idea that a trusted vendor couldn't be trusted to do their fundamental job without our oversight reminded me how there is only one person who really cares about thinking all these risks thru, and that is me, the Owner.  How many people have been put out of business or set back many years by a careless or dishonest vendor, employee or resource?

I do a walk with my dog most nights and recently I've been meeting up with a neighbor - A Father at the local Episcopal Church - and he noted losing your life's work like that is very much how someone feels after a fire.  I think that was a good analogy.

New Barn House in Bethel NY - Sullivan County NY Real Estate

We've built a bunch of homes on Silver Birch Way in Bethel NY on a nice private road carved out 15 years ago.  The land then sat for 15 years as the original developer slowly lowered his prices down to reality.  That's when we came in.

This 3.5 acres piece of catskills real estate pairs with one of our open floor plan barn houses sized at just over 1500 sq ft.  It sits directly on top of a large lake, with terrific boulder outcroppings cantilevered over the pond.

This new home in the catskills will be priced under $500k, and will be finished early Fall.  It is currently for sale.   www.thecatskillfarms.com. 

Barn 28 Sold

The Catskill Farms is proud to announce the sale of Barn 28 in Livingston Manor NY – a pretty pairing of home and land in Sullivan County.

This real estate offering featured 1500 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a rear screened porch. Familiar details include wood burning fireplaces, interesting and open floor plans, wide plank floors, fun plumbing and lighting fixtures throughout, kick your boots off mudrooms.

Industrial meets country, meets modern provide genre-busting inspiration and comfort – life is cool in these superb specimens of Catskills real estate.

Woodstock/Saugerties Area Real Estate (Ulster County, NY)

1700 square foot, 3 bedroom, 2 bath Barn House on 5+ acres outside of Saugerties and Woodstock, NY.

The small towns of Ulster County offer beauty, amenities and charm in abundance.  They offer film festivals and live music. The hamlets and towns that anchor the surrounding land we curate and select for our homes make Ulster County real estate some of the best around for fun, food and festivities (or, if you are like us, backyard siestas and hammocks rank right up there). 

The Homes of Catskill Farms are engineered to be as energy efficient as a home can be. Enhanced insulation paves the way for superior performance from our high efficiency furnaces and on-demand hot water heaters. Many of our homes now have heat pumps for their heating source, eliminating the need for gas or oil as a fuel source.

Click here to read more about Ulster County Real Estate. Catskill Real Estate at its finest.

Catskill Farms designs, builds and sells homes and Real estate in Sullivan County, real estate in Ulster County and real estate in Dutchess County. The homes of Catskill Farms tend work, look great, are fully warrantied and have a sort of timeless design. Catskills real estate available for purchase has been undoubtedly improved by the 100 homes this premier Catskills Builder has dreamed up and built since 2001.

Catskills realtors love Catskill Farms homes for sale in the Catskills since their buyers tend to be inspired by them after the long slog at looking at homes that don’t meet the buyers’ criteria. When people from the city think of upstate homes, many of them think real estate near Woodstock. With one of the most famous town brands around, searching for homes for sale in Woodstock NY is a perfectly logical place to start a Catskills real estate search. While many families find homes in Woodstock have a lot to offer, they soon find the Catskills are much bigger and much more diverse than that culturally important locale. Wasting weekends looking at uninspiring Catskills architecture can leave a buyer looking for the nearest bridge to jump from. Catskill Farms checks all the Catskill real estate boxes.

Dream Front Porch in Sullivan County Cottage

Doesn't get much better than this.  Full house audio, security, 2 big beds, 2 cool bathrooms, 6 very private acres, pond view and a house so uniquely stylish that no narrative can do it justice.

Sullivan County NY real estate offers wide open spaces, peacefulness and proximity to NYC you will not experience anywhere else. Prices and values can seem refreshingly attainable here. Weekend life in Sullivan County revolves around coffee on the front porch, small dinner parties, county fairs and one horse towns like Callicoon, Narrowsburg and Barryville.

The Homes of Catskill Farms are engineered to be as energy efficient as a home can be. Enhanced insulation paves the way for superior performance from our high efficiency furnaces and on-demand hot water heaters. Many of our homes now have heat pumps for their heating source, eliminating the need for gas or oil as a fuel source.

Click here to read more about Sullivan County Real Estate. Catskills real estate at its finest.

Our brand new, super cool homes on great pieces of Sullivan County NY real estate are hard to beat. Sullivan County NY real estate offers wide open spaces, peacefulness and proximity to NYC you will not experience anywhere else. Prices and values can seem refreshingly attainable here. It's where our offices are, and where we have been living and building for over a decade. Catskill Farms has been dabbling in Sullivan County real estate since 2002, building more new homes on its rolling hills and shaded forests than any other county.

Weekend life in Sullivan County revolves around coffee on the front porch, small dinner parties, county fairs and one horse towns like Callicoon, Narrowsburg and Barryville.

Two aspects of Sullivan County real estate attracts lots of families: value and quality of life. Catskill Farms can build our barns, farms, cottages and ranches for $75k less than we can in Ulster County and $125k less than Dutchess County. In the same vein, our Sullivan County real estate typically comes with larger, more secluded land parcels, and even lake rights at times.

Sullivan County is 100 miles from NYC but little real estate within 2 hours of NYC transports you to a simpler, quieter way of life as quickly and completely as our real estate in Sullivan County.

Catskill Farms is a home builder specializing in new constructions (occasionally some renovations) across the Catskill’s and Hudson Valley’s Sullivan County, Dutchess County, and Ulster County. Our clean architecture and thoughtful design make our modern farm homes, mid-century ranches, charming barn homes and cozy cottage series the dream of any country lifestyle enthusiast. Our homes are typically around 2 hours from NYC, making it perfect for those inspired in the escape Brooklyn movement. We’ve seen our new homes bring about overall design inspiration to the areas we build in (in locations such as Livingston Manor, Narrowsburg, Woodstock, Saugerties and Rhinebeck) with country-living being the new direction of choice. Catskill Farms has truly broadened and advanced the real estate opportunities north of NYC. We’ve combined modern design and technologies with natural textures, big country porches and all things classic country home for a timeless home construction. Not only are our homes to lust after when finished, but our building process itself is so easy and stress-free. Contact us with your needs and wishes and work with us to make it all happen.  

The 2nd Mid-Century Ranch

Mid-Century Ranch 2 - 2 beds, 1 bath in under 1000 sq ft, from nearly 10 years ago. 

Sullivan County NY real estate offers wide open spaces, peacefulness and proximity to NYC you will not experience anywhere else. Prices and values can seem refreshingly attainable here. Weekend life in Sullivan County revolves around coffee on the front porch, small dinner parties, county fairs and one horse towns like Callicoon, Narrowsburg and Barryville.

The Homes of Catskill Farms are engineered to be as energy efficient as a home can be. Enhanced insulation paves the way for superior performance from our high efficiency furnaces and on-demand hot water heaters. Many of our homes now have heat pumps for their heating source, eliminating the need for gas or oil as a fuel source.

Click here to read more about Sullivan County Real Estate. Catskills Real Estate at its finest.

Catskill Farms designs, builds and sells homes and Real estate in Sullivan County, real estate in Ulster County and real estate in Dutchess County. The homes of Catskill Farms tend work, look great, are fully warrantied and have a sort of timeless design. Catskills real estate available for purchase has been undoubtedly improved by the 100 homes this premier CatskillsBuilder has dreamed up and built since 2001.

Catskills realtors love Catskill Farms homes for sale in the Catskills since their buyers tend to be inspired by them after the long slog at looking at homes that don’t meet the buyers’ criteria. When people from the city think of upstate homes, many of them think real estate near Woodstock. With one of the most famous town brands around, searching for homes for sale in Woodstock NY is a perfectly logical place to start a Catskills real estate search. While many families find homes in Woodstock have a lot to offer, they soon find the Catskills are much bigger and much more diverse than that culturally important locale. Wasting weekends looking at uninspiring Catskills architecture can leave a buyer looking for the nearest bridge to jump from. Catskill Farms checks all the Catskill real estate boxes.