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

"I live in Eldred Ny, love my town and the people in it, but Chuck from catskill farms is a really mean, bad, lier..."

onCatskill Farms hits the Small Screen - HGTV's Selling NY"


What I love about this comment - what is most symbolic of the writer and at times, the area-  is the mis-pelling of the word 'lier'.  What I also love about this comment - and believe me, a lot of people agree with the sentiment, is that it just must be really confusing as to why we continue to prosper and grow - and the reason is simple, we are straight shooters who suffer no fools (especially when they can get in the way of our basic business premise, which is to provide a drama-free seque into country living.)

It doesn't matter if it's Randy Florke, Steve Dubrovsky and myself,  success (no matter how modest or well-earned) and the tactics and tools required to achieve it, are unfamiliar to many in the area.

Client after client after client have come to see us, have built with us, have kickstarted a new chapter of living large with our facilitation - it's a rewarding way to earn a living, although there has been a campaign for years to discredit our achievement.

I get a lot of flak, and generate a lot of ire, because I won't join the 'gas drilling in NY is going to kill us all and sink the planet once and for all' charade.  I mean I get a LOT of flak, I get totally harassed and even ostracized among the civilized folk, and the only reason I can pull it off is because our homes are that good that people keep buying them even though I'm rooting for the end of the earth, destruction of the world as we know it, poisoner of people and their pets, polluter of aquifers, organic farmland, vineyards and micro-brews.

But the bottom line is, I refuse to entomb myself in the campaign of fear being used to mobilize people. Sure, back in 2008-2010, gas drilling would have sucked because Big Gas wanted to have their way with us with no rules, checks or balances.  That would have sucked, and it was a stressful time indeed.

But those days are over, and nowhere would drilling gas be more regulated and controlled than NY State, after 5 years of successful grassroots concern.

Maybe it doesn't work or fit in Sullivan County, but to drive across the huge empty State of NY where property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes are the highest in the nation, where there is zero economic activity and not think we are smart enough to figure out a way to do it - well, my point is simple -  I think we are smart enough.

Try and find the local population between 25-35 - you can't because they leave because there is nothing here for them.  A community without youth is no community at all.

So my point is simple - I think we are smart enough to figure it out, and I don't appreciate the harm the anti-gas folks cause to the area with their fear-mongering.  It's their only tool, and they use it well past the point of believability - because once you don't fear it, then they have a problem.  

Call me an ogre - that's fine and dandy (especially since ogres are now made loveable since Shrek came on the stage), but I believe in 15 years NY State will have a dynamic gas harvesting industry (like many other states), a model for the nation and world, and it will be to the credit of those who fought to bring its dangers to light, and those who fought to not have those dangers be exaggerated.  Those who refuse to use their intelligence, savviness and sophistication to help bring it about in the smartest way will probably find themselves on the wrong side of history.

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So, I'm in Miami Beach, so there is no reason to cry for me Argentina, but I have timed it uniquely perfect with a cold front coming in on Thursday, the day I arrived, and continuing on till Tuesday, the day I leave.  52 degrees this morning and I've been wearing the same sweat shirt for days.  Every one is walking around with sweaters right off the racks, with the store folds and hanger marks embedded on them.

Lucas below trying on my ski wear before our ski trip two weekends ago.

This is one difference between Miami Beach and Sullivan County - here I was just walking around minding my own business and came across this big model shoot party on the ocean right off Ocean Ave.  I'm sure I could find other differences if I tried hard enough.

And for all you Scarface fans, up there on the 3rd floor behind the blue bubble is the chain saw scene room.  Funny story about Scarface movie.

So, when I was like 16 or 17 I was dating a girl out of my league whose dad was a pretty straight and narrow Naval Academy grad who was raising 3 cute daughters.  So they humored me even though I was swimming in water above my head and asked me to bring over a movie we all could watch together on some Saturday night.  So I bring Scarface - I mean, within 30 minutes there were like 125 'fucks', that beautiful scene where tony's friend does the 'tongue thing' as a come on line to some muchacha, a chain saw scene, a murder and it was just getting started.  Totally inappropriate, and that was before it evolved into a cult classic - which in a way, validates my 'ahead of the times - ness' that I still deploy today.  

However, thinking back on it, at the time it was more like Taxi Driver, where the clueless DeNiro takes his date to the porn show.

Cottage 36 is a hot house, which we finished up about 18 months ago.  Thing is, owners liked the process so much they want to do it again, this time only bigger.  I've often said, tongue in cheek like, that it's too bad you only get to typically build once in your life, since you learn so much along the way that would help the second time around.  These folks are taking me up on that assertion.

Cool house on 15 acres, selling for $439k, which is a good deal by anyone's calculations, considering how loaded this house is with upgrades and goodies.

Mudroom, with the bowling pin pic with salvaged wood frame that she gave him for some life marking event.  This is a fun little area of the home - with the salvaged wood, rad, bench, stone and elbow room.

The upstairs has a catwalk to the 2 bedrooms that allows this elevated vantage.

A lot of downhomeness here.  Super simple, restrained and classy.  You can't teach taste, and typically our clients have taste by the basketfull.

Eat in kitchen, that seques both onto the deck and the living room.

Couple of snazzy bedrooms with beds consistently made well enough to bounce a quarter off of.  Don't try that at home.

Spacious, low key, high impact baths.

The kids playhouse.  Far enough away from the house for noise muffling, but close enough to keep an eye on those damn kids.

And the old out door fireplace in the screened porch trick.

There's you got it.  I'm down in Miami Beach, gotta go run and get my hair cut.