Cool prefab modern going up in Black Forest Colony

Over the past week I've been writing up a new set of pages for the main site about the various lake and non-lake communities in Sullivan County. (I've written up thumbnails about 25 communities and have another 5 or 6 to go before I post the pages. I know, I know ... get a life.). Today, when I started working on the non-lake communities, including Black Forest Colony near Glen Spey, I came across a great personal site documenting the planning and construction of a prefab modern home there. It's an interesting site, with some great video documentation of the process, as well as some history about Black Forest Colony. I thought you might want to check it out ---> Villa Straylight at the Black Forest Colony.

Comments

[ar]

Fascinating link -- not only relating to this particular house, but to the whole prefab concept, which I don't know much about, but which seems to have tons to recommend it re cost, quality control, green values, etc.

[hl]

Where's the ATM machine?

Isn't there a reason why people don't build flat roofs in northern climes where it snows a lot?

[ar]

Here's the answer to "hl"'s comment --

http://www.fabprefab.net/smf/index.php?topic=41.0

[CF]

ar - prefab has been the media darling for a few years now, without much consumer support. While the designs are great and can go in any style (traditional, modern, industrial), the market opportunity the modular hawkers all tout has proved to be illusive - ie, that you can build a modular faster and cheaper with higher quality than stick built. Those claims work better in the marketing material than the jobsite.

We did a lot of research on this - with a lot of savvy designers picking up the torch, we had to pay attention - And while the designs were great, the lack of the ability to improvise, cost effectively change something once construction begins, and the large amount of typical contracting still remaining (land purchase, driveway, utility infrastructure, well, septic, foundation, foundation drainage, basment slab), in the end it was never compelling from a cost and time standpoint.

Not to say it's not compelling - but to make any waves in the marketplace, the people running these companies will need to come up with a better sales hook than faster, easier, and cheaper - because, in the end, it's not.

[Reg]

hl: Old wives' tale. Start reading with Reply #2 and continue down. http://www.fabprefab.net/smf/index.php?topic=41.0

[ar]

Ok, CF, spoken like a true hawker of stick builts. Whether it's a modernist prefab touted in a manufacturer's marketing materials or a Faux Farmhouse touted by its seller on this blog, maybe the touter is not the most reliable source of information. The creator(s) of the detailed, sophisticated and thoughtful site to which Dave linked do not seem likely to be rubes who fell for a slick hawker's false promises. They sound like people who did their homework and were more than capable of doing it thoroughly and well. What's nice about Dave's link to this site is that it opens a window to a fresh view, and a refreshing break from the same old vernacular.

[Kevin Delmont]

Another example of city-slickers destroying the country.....

In the last decade-long run-up in real estate, all city folks did was rape the lands of the catskills. They bought small wooded lots, overpaid for them, build ridiculous structures, held guests on white fabirc furniture and then put them on the market once the novelty wore off. And then they think that today's buyer has the same silly mindset.

Who on earth would buy such a hidious structure?
Humans are a terrible species.

[David Knudsen]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I happen to think it's a very attractive house.

[CF]

ar - it's great to see you just can't hide those true colors, although you do give it a nice shot occassionally.

In case you didn't notice, I think prefabs are great, and compelling. I just don't think there is a time and cost benefit, and that's where the prefab marketeers have concentrated their marketing efforts. Unlike you, I think consumers are very smart and see right through marketing - so if you got something to sell, you got to make an effort to tout it's true attributes, since the consumer will discover them themselves.

Build a house in 8 weeks! For the most part, that's not true, unless you don't count a whole lot of factors of construction.

[Nest Dweller]

"...all city folks did was rape the lands of the catskills."

Uh huh. Look at the percentage of how much of your town taxes are being paid by "city folks" and you may rethink who's getting raped.

[keith]

I grew up in Grahamsville, which, along with Neversink, has a NYC reservoir. There's a rift between the local residents and NYC that dates back to the 40's when families were uprooted and relocated so that the valleys could be flooded to create the reservoirs. Many of those uprooted were farm families, at the time farms were a major part of the rural economy. Today, like the Catskill's hotels, most all of the Grahamsville and Neversink farms are gone. Yet, those towns didn't die, in part because prisons in Napanoch and Woodbourne employ many of the residents, but a significant contribution to the area is also the flow of tax dollars NYC pays for those reservoirs. NYC also employs local residents to manage and patrol the watershed. What seemed like a terrible event to local residents back in the 40's may well have saved those towns decades later.

[ar]

Keith, what a horrible trade-off -- farms for prisons.

[keith]

ar, yes a horrible trade off, my paternal grandparents were farmers as were my maternal great grandparents. Both had farms that are now under the Rondout Reservoir in Grahamsville. But a corrections officer has a much easier life than a Sullivan County farmer did. The Sullivan County farmers may have had a lot of land (which was cheap back then), most were poor (as my grandparents were). And CO's have vacation time, health benefits, and pension. The prisons were also mainly a contribution of NYC, since most of the inmates were originally convicted there. It's also horrible what this geographic displacement does to inmates and their families (who remained in NYC). In the wee hours every Saturday morning, a convoy of buses leaves the city carrying families for inmate visitation at upstate NY prisons. It's sad, prisons now fuel so many rural economies, supplanting farms and factories.