Finally Bought Some Land

One day as sort of a "well we have time so what the heck" we ended up looking at some land just outside Hillsdale NY. Not the sort of land we imagined buying - pine woodland with deciduous trees mix over rolling terrain on a small hill - but there was a small creek on the property, many tumbledown stone fences leftover from the 1800's farm it once was, and many of the pines were over 75 feet, allowing for a nice shaded breeze on even warm days. So it grew on us. 6 months later (easements, easements, easements) we've finally bought the land - 32 acres of firewood, turkeys, grouse, fox, bobcat and deer.

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Now the headaches begin in earnest. I am sure there are plenty of others here who can tell stories. Please feel invited to do so. I am all ears. We meet with our architects (LevenBetts) Tuesday for the preliminary conversations. I figure we'll be happy if the foundation is in by winter. No designs yet - first had to get land, but we really like this house by a Canuckian architect. We'll see.

Most importantly, the riding rocks in that area. Right over the mountain from Great Barrington, 25 minutes to Hudson, lots of ups, gravel, history, etc. What a relief from the stinky city! Hooray.

wonderfull! Congratulations.

Congratulations! Looks like it is really special! Enjoy!

Congratulations! Looks beautiful! Do you have an active deer lease on the property? If not, would you be interested in leasing for deer season?

Congratulations. It will be a place of peace. True respite.

Dang, you did it :)

Congrats Jorn! I hope to follow in your footsteps one day.

My family owns a couple parcels in Wisconsin. I can easily imagine a dwelling on one of them one day.

Congrats to you.
Come join us in Otsego County for a nice ride or two when you're settled in and have the chance.

Very Nice! Congrats!
I hope you have a mountain bike!

Very nice, and I'm glad to see the dream coming together.

The cabin design you linked would be smart, especially the covered outdoor seating. As you know, it rains a lot, and being able to enjoy the outdoors when it's raining would be a big design feature I'd consider if building from scratch.

Good luck!

Host a CX race!
Congrats!

Thanks. I am particularly psyched about the creek, which after the semi-drought last year was barely a trickle and now is burbling away. It is also 1/2 of the start of the Roeliff Jansen Kill, which runs from just north of our property to the southern border of Columbia County and north again to Germantown where it enters the Hudson River. I like being at the start of things.

No hunting. Some sort of covenant in the title about it. Plus I think we are within the town boundary. Need to brush up on the local regulations.

Yeah, the porch with a large overhang is key. We came back from Japan having spent time sitting on temple porches out of the rain thinking, yep we need one of those.

I'm thinking a Zank Road32 or 44 Huntsmen would be about right. Then I'll start work on the Jorn Fondo.

Nice!!

You are now close enough to join in some of the New England dirt rides.

The house design is really nice (the over hang particularly). Does it come with a random guy hanging off random things?
Building a house is both rewarding and a HUGE PITA. Either you or your wife will have a second job until it is complete.

FWIW - when my wife and I look at houses now we look for things like 'less stair cases'. We are in our 50s (and fit) but don't want any more stair cases than absolutely necessary as we look toward the future.

Great Jorn! Now when's the first XC MTB race?

Very Nice!!! Congrats. Nothing better than the forest.

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Originally Posted by j44ke

I am particularly psyched about the creek,

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So would I be. Congratulations!

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Originally Posted by Bewheels

Nice!!

You are now close enough to join in some of the New England dirt rides.

The house design is really nice (the over hang particularly). Does it come with a random guy hanging off random things?
Building a house is both rewarding and a HUGE PITA. Either you or your wife will have a second job until it is complete.

FWIW - when my wife and I look at houses now we look for things like 'less stair cases'. We are in our 50s (and fit) but don't want any more stair cases than absolutely necessary as we look toward the future.

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Second job person would be me since my first job is as a poet. My wife wants to get an Airstream to put me in up there, but I don't think she's looked at the prices on those things, even used. But I will be spending more and more time up there as the process goes along. Major sacrifice on my part of course, but I will manage somehow.

Perhaps with gravel rides!

Good point on the design and age. We are back and forth on whether to have a second floor. The black house with the floppy man in it linked above appeals as a model for the first floor at least, because everything is on the same level without any thresholds.

Anything we build will need a mud room, that's for sure.

Congratulations!

beautiful piece. love the creek.
congrats.

dct has already set up his tent on the property so you better check w him on yr house site.

Looks awesome. Searching out locations to retire to is a hobby of ours.

Great news and looks beautiful!

And agree on the creek...what a treasure that will be.

Good luck!

SPP

Love it! Congrats. Whens the turkey hunt? :). FYI get an umbrella policy for it.

#winning.

You may never need to leave your acreage, however there is no shortage of D2-style farm roads, fire roads, and trails in a 50 mile radius around your spot...

Hope you like native berry pies, maple syrup, farm stands, heirloom varieties of anything and everything...

Congratulations!

Two words: "guest house".

Congrats. That's the dream.

Absolutely gorgeous.

SteveP - that explains the Assos bibs hanging on the tree. I averted my eyes just in case.

My wife is already looking at snowshoes. I'd rather have cross country skis. There's evidently a nearby apple orchard where the owner is into skiing and opens the orchards for use in winter. But that will need to wait until next winter. Fingers crossed for warmer weather in the meantime. Makes it easier to dig holes.

We joke about roughing it, but there is a really excellent ice cream shop in Great Barrington and Hudson has a restaurant called Swoon that is terrific, so roughing it doesn't mean much. Even the dirt is clean.

Houston - thanks, insurance is on the list for tomorrow. A lot of trees to fall out of, so need to be covered.

The only advice I would give anyone looking o build, is "don't overbuild".

Just because the concrete truck is there, or the framers are going to be there anyway don't give in to the temptation to "just add another 1000, maybe 1500 square feet."

Very nice....congrats. I grew up in the woods with a creek about 100ft away from the house; looking at your pics brings back some fond memories.

Awesome!

Last summer after the forest fire in our town we got to thinking "What if we have to evacuate with dogs? What if the house burns down?" So we bought 10 acres in Moab and it has been great. We walk the pups off the leash in the yard get to escape the winter in Colorado. The house is small, the garage is big. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Joe

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade."

Yeats didn't know cross but you do...

After a number of cautionary tales, we've set our budget at 60% of what we can afford with the goal of getting a solid 1800-2000 sq ft. design that fits our needs. Then if there are technical adjustments or if we decide to upgrade a feature or area of the house that will improve long term durability (like sliding glass doors or mechanicals) we can do so rationally. We want a house that is easy to manage, durable through the seasons, and very simply but comfortably furnished. 2 beds, 2 (large) couches, wood stove, dining table, chairs, that's it.

Here is the LevenBetts house that started this whole process. We tried to buy it, the sellers wouldn't budge on the price, so we said okay let's build our own. How hard could it be?

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Originally Posted by summilux

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade."

Yeats didn't know cross but you do...

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Oh nice work! I might have to get that carved into a stone and put somewhere on the property. I like the idea of lost and found curiosities in the woods.

I still haven't figured out how to get a dog out of this deal though. I think the creek needs a dog.

Here is the "grandma" pine tree on the property. The sellers said probably 150 years old. It's been hit at least once by lightning, and it has lost its crown, but it's still upright.

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Originally Posted by j44ke

It's been hit at least once by lightning, and it has lost its crown, but it's still upright.

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I've been feeling like that a lot this spring...

Big old trees are the soul of the place. We have several on the edge of out woods that seem to be leading the others...

That looks like a border pine; I'm not surprised it's located along that stone wall.

Very cool! Congratulations!

Is your plan to continue to maintain two homes, one the city and one in the country? Coincidentally, my wife & I were talking yesterday about old friends who've purchased a Back Bay pied a terre, while keeping their waterside home on the South Shore. We can't figure out the two-home logistics, but that probably just means we're single-resident people...

If you're thinking about building a place where you'll grow old, I'd look seriously at single-level living. Or at least a design that would allow you guys to live successfully on a single floor at some point down the road. You've definitely got the space to build out rather than up.

Your 60% idea seems appropriately cautious. I'm going to throw out an idea here - Have you looked at pre-fab options? Our (1999) home is a modular build, and the factory-built pieces are supremely solid. I'm guessing it would save some construction costs over building from scratch, too. You clearly want a clean, modern look and I bet there are ways to use pre-fab modules to get to that kind of design.

Keep us updated on the progress. This is fun to watch unfold!

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Originally Posted by monadnocky

That looks like a border pine; I'm not surprised it's located along that stone wall.

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It's marked on some earlier surveys of the land as both a corner & as a "X distance from lg pine" measurements.

Save some lumber for the tree house.

Very cool! Still a dream of mine - having grown up on acreage - but in '98 we built on the edge of suburbia with my back yard adjacent to 3000 acres of conservation land with trails and lakes. Every time we think of relocating we rethink our current amenities.

Long term plan once our dependents have moved out, is to do like xjoex & build an 800sqft cabin in the foothills above Colorado's Wet Mountain Valley as an escape pod. Singletrack is a bit lean, but gravel for days. Love the view.

Then I can justify one of these:

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Originally Posted by davids

Very cool! Congratulations!

Is your plan to continue to maintain two homes, one the city and one in the country? Coincidentally, my wife & I were talking yesterday about old friends who've purchased a Back Bay pied a terre, while keeping their waterside home on the South Shore. We can't figure out the two-home logistics, but that probably just means we're single-resident people...

If you're thinking about building a place where you'll grow old, I'd look seriously at single-level living. Or at least a design that would allow you guys to live successfully on a single floor at some point down the road. You've definitely got the space to build out rather than up.

Your 60% idea seems appropriately cautious. I'm going to throw out an idea here - Have you looked at pre-fab options? Our (1999) home is a modular build, and the factory-built pieces are supremely solid. I'm guessing it would save some construction costs over building from scratch, too. You clearly want a clean, modern look and I bet there are ways to use pre-fab modules to get to that kind of design.

Keep us updated on the progress. This is fun to watch unfold!

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Yep, two homes. We've been renting in Amagansett for about 8 years, so we've practiced. You always forget something at the other place, and you are never at the country place enough. But that's only been Sept-May, so no summers and we're wondering how this will affect our travel plans. I think we'll just invert and travel in the winter to somewhere sunny to keep the joints limber. Eventually we'll trade our city apartment for a sleeping closet or just ditch city life and take to the wilderness. The house will be designed with sprightly 60-70 year olds in mind.

We have looked at prefab. Original plan many years ago was to buy a prefab from Alchemy Architects and put it in the Chiricahuas down in AZ. But that's not practical with my wife's need of a nearby international airport. These architects have really studied airflow & passive solar, and the three houses of theirs I've seen all have this crazy ability to heat and cool in contrast to the season. Their newest house requires almost no supplementary heating due to passive solar, and the original house we saw had a built-in breeze in summer. Zero wind outside, and then in the house there would be a nice breeze. Uncanny. So we like the idea of something where energy management is the design, and it seems like having total control over the shape is key to that.

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Originally Posted by davids

If you're thinking about building a place where you'll grow old, I'd look seriously at single-level living.

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I wholeheartedly agree with this. Our place is single level and I now hate our other house for having so many stairs!

You definitely need a dog. A big furry bastard, preferably bought from the farmer who owns the orchard.

-Joe

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Originally Posted by Nierman

Very cool! Still a dream of mine - having grown up on acreage - but in '98 we built on the edge of suburbia with my back yard adjacent to 3000 acres of conservation land with trails and lakes. Every time we think of relocating we rethink our current amenities.

Long term plan once our dependents have moved out, is to do like xjoex & build an 800sqft cabin in the foothills above Colorado's Wet Mountain Valley as an escape pod. Singletrack is a bit lean, but gravel for days. Love the view.

Then I can justify one of these:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...b82c4a619c.jpg

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Hah! Good plan. I've already been offered a deal on a Gator with a snowplow attachment, but I know well enough to reject offers like that. There are reasons for eager offers to sell machines.