The farm property consists of 400 acres located at 3061 Essex Rd, Willsboro, NY on State Route 22, nearly abutting Lake Champlain, in the northeast of New York State. The owner is currently listing it for $2.5M. It is just across the way from Lake Champlain, with public access points 1.5 miles north in Willsboro's Noblewood Park (Swimming & Paddling), and 1.5 miles south at the boat launch (Paddling+) in the cozy town of Essex (pop. 620). It is a rural area, with a fairly large Amish presence, though the town of Essex draws a bit of a summer crowd, with a few restaurants and cafes, some arts and bookstores, a theater company, and the nearby Whallonsburg Grange. Plus, there is an indoor rock climbing wall at a nearby summer camp in Willsboro, the Lake for sailing/paddling/swimming, a local trail system, and proximity to Lake Placid and the Adirondacks (1h by car) for 'recreation'.
The other nearest towns and cities are, by car, Plattsburgh (45m North); Middlebury, VT (1h); Burlington, VT (1h by ferry and car, 1.5h by car); Montreal, Canada (1h45m); Boston, MA (4.25h); and New York City (5h).
There is a relatively strong organic farming thread in the area, largely due to the presence of the most righteous Essex Farm CSA, who (Mark & Kristin) arrived about 25 years ago, and spawned a series of farms and related businesses. When I first found and fell in love with this -- 3061 Essex Rd -- farm, it was on zooming-out from the map that I saw Essex Farm nearly abutting it, and realized where it was. By happenstance, Mark was my first farm mentor, back in the late 90s in central Pennsylvania. I got to visit him this winter while looking at the property, and have a first-hand account of the land and the area -- which is a gift so valuable and unbelievably rare, it's hard to estimate it : Having a friend vouch for a place.
I do not have enough personal experience on Route 22 to define its nature, though I will shortly. In the meantime, New York state offers traffic data and volume reports for various years, as well as a nice data visualization tool. There is no present data on the exact part of the road that passes by the farm, but there are some close data points. Looking at NY-22 just north of the town of Essex, in Boquet, there was a 928 (834, 3-year average) AADT (annual average daily traffic) count. A connecting road -- Jersey Rd. -- at the same point had a 282 (285, 3-year average) AADT count. That leaves 646 (550, 3-year average) cars, both directions, on the portion of NY-22 that leads into Essex.
If one were to assume that the ballpark is 600 cars, both ways, on the road -- not factoring in incoming traffic on Lakeshore Rd., which is a straight-shot -- and further assume 12 hours of travel, that's an average of 45-53 cars/hour. If one rode a bike the 1.5 miles into town at 10 mph (6 minute miles), one would take 9 minutes to get there, and see 3-4 oncoming cars. If one were to walk at 3 mph, taking 30 minutes to get into town, then one would see 11-14 oncoming cars. However, for anyone travelling between Boquet and Willsboro, GIS routes along Middle road, not the state route that the farm is on. My suspicion is that the car traffic is significantly less than the numbers above.
The best way for me to understand climate is by comparison, so hopefully that works for you. Weather Spark has a very nice climate comparison tool. For me, the gist is : Some East Coast humidity, North Country cold in winter (-20F to -15F winter lows, USDA zone 5a), and ever-so-slightly lake-moderated/momentum-ed seasonal and daily flux. Snowfall is significantly reduced because of the lake, but it still happens. It is about one-third of the way east into the time zone, and at 44.3°N, so, a little later than the sunrise that had the lobstermen going out on their sunny boats at 4 o'clock in the morning from our island in Maine (44.5°N), but something close; and not quite the late-late summer farm nights of Ann Arbor, Michigan (42.3°N), but also something close. This sunrise/sunset and day-length map-to-chart tool is useful to corroborate any sense you might have. Climate change is ... changing things, though, so the summers and winters are getting warmer than they used to be.
The farm itself is 400 gently sloping acres across 3 parcels, approximately 250 open and currently hayed, and 150 wooded or "wasteland". The governmental overlay on the land includes the Town of Willsboro and the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The bulk of the land is in "Rural Residential" Willsboro zoning / "Rural Use" APA land use, with the remainder along the road in "RL-3 (Residential, Low Density)"/ "Low Intensity". You can explore that via the APA Land Use map and the Essex County Parcels map.
Provisional to approval, the easiest tier of APA permitting and Town of Willsboro zoning permits us a total of 12 homes (4 out of 5 maximum x 8.5 ac. in Rural Use, plus 8 out of 9 maximum x 3.2 ac. in Low Intensity, where acreage is the limiting factor). This count of 12 includes the one existing farmhouse (1940s, 2008 renovation). The details matter, though, and no eggs can be counted until the paperwork gets signed.
Within the 400 acres, most of us can collect in a long 6 acre rectangle defined by a 1000' buffer along the main road, with 200+ feet between facing homes, 100' between homes on the east run, and 200' on the west run -- per zoning. The best land for growing is the sandy loam in the 20 acres around the barn -- which is not zoned for close residential use -- which means our inner rectangle will likely not be used for our principle food production, but is open to most everything else -- trials gardens, garlic seed production, pumpkins, play fields, pool, etc. I have been imagining it as our commons commons, or middleground, and hoping to make it into a beautiful mix of trees, flowers, vegetables, and herbs a la Monty Don. Every site has its constraints or features, and these are some of ours.
Note that ...
Depending upon the exact measurement of the southern parcel in low-intensity zoning, and the feasibility of border line assimilation / adjustment, we might only get 11 homes.
There is a kind-of loophole in the subdivision process, whereby 1) the Town of Willsboro counts farm-owner and subsequent farmworker housing as a single principal building (see #9 in Definitions, "Principal Building") AND 2) the APA, via recent court order, must recognize farm-worker housing as "agricultural use structures" and not under separate ownership, thus not subdivision. But the APA is salty about this, and so it doesn't seem like a prudent first-step. Perhaps later we could add more farmer-housing, if it feels right.
Willsboro zoning nowhere mentions a "minimum yard", but rather has all of its yard definitions with respect to a principal building and/or a right-of-way. The APA does mention a minimum lot width, as well as a "minimum frontage for deeded or contractual access from back lots." But it seems possible to gerrymander the low-intensity units into a kind-of clustered housing strip, while still respecting the minimum distances between homes and minimum acreage per lot that they require. That is what I have done to keep us relatively close together, and more communal. But who knows what they will say about that.
Willsboro Zoning Article 8, "Optional Cluster Development", might permit us another route, given further zoning board consideration. While other co-housing and intentional communities have surely clustered homes close together, I have tried to design a collection of homes into a community that balances the communal with the private, maximizes winter sun and the annual sunrise/sunset experience, and gives each household the necessary room to generate one's own place, while also trying to string the individual into a synergistic whole. Which is to say, we may not need to get the houses any closer than they already are without this option.
This development strategy maximizes speed by minimizing public hearings and Class B, and even Class A, permitting. If one had the stomach, time, and money, one could develop a large-scale subdivision, develop duplex and multi-family homes, put in a green trailer park, work on low-income housing clusters, and do any other number of things. My children are still young; I am doing much of this for them, and I do not want to finish this the permitting on the day they go to college.
While we begin and perhaps end at 11-12 households, we hold in mind the capacity for increase, to begin, through 1) infill via purchase of previously subdivided properties along the road, 2) farm-worker housing, and 3) large-scale subdivision.
Four hundred acres is a lot. That's 33 acres per household. If one were to do a gross calculation on the land required to biologically and sustainably provide the basics of life -- the four Fs of Food, Fiber, Fuel, and Framing -- with a bit of electricity thrown in where it's sensible, then you might come out to 2 acres per person. That's a ballpark figure, but it gives this land the opportunity to provide for 200 people. All of this is to say, this is way more land than a group of 12 households could reasonably need for their basic necessities; unless the basic necessities of life also include "non-productive" land and "non-productive" uses of time, like wandering in wild and semi-wild places, drinking maple sap from buckets that you don't intend to boil, and otherwise balancing the creation and consumption of life with the simple experience of living. (Note that were we a horse-based civilization, 400 acres would get smaller in perspective.)
I am excited to have found a property that affords this much wandering and semi-wild space. Were there the exact same thing -- walking distance to a nice town, flat and good soils for farming vegetables, a climate that I like, and enough division rights for a community -- for half the price that also borders on preserved land, okay! But as it stands, I'm startled to find something so nice. But managing land, especially this much, is not a small thing. At present a local fellow -- who is more well-respected and known in the area than we might ever be -- hays it. The bulk of open land will likely continue in hay and/or sheep for wool, though a re-wilding of certain sections, or sugarbush planting, is not out of the quesiton. The New York State Agricultural Assessment, would figure into our plans, and we would need to fine-tooth comb that together.
It is not in my constitution to want to farm/hay it all by myself, though, and so either a) constitutions other than mine to come will fill that niche, or b) an understanding that whatever ethos / mythos guides our food and fiber systems, the realities of 200 acres of hay -- that is, likely big tractors and mechanization -- will likely be different, and we need to see that at the start. Thus this paragraph.
I envision a community of mostly-mostly home and land-based folks, living and working among or with each other. The Town of Willsboro and the APA call this "home occupation", when it's not strictly farming -- which is a by-right use of the land, especially ours in an agricultural district. It would be useful for you to review the zoning for the particulars on what is and is not considered a home business.
The APA (Tit. 9 § 573.8) defines "[p]rofeateliers, each for dreaming and creating something good and beautiful. This is a very big umbrella, restrictive principally in its desire for on-site work, and taking-in all manner of traditional artistan work to artists to 'professionals' We cannot imagine all the wssional, commercial or artisan activities associated with residential or accessory structures on the same premises" as 'accessory' if they "involve the employment at one time of not more than two persons not residing on the premises ... do not change the residential character of the principal land use or development" and limit the signage in size and illumination.
The Town of Willsboro, in their zoning document, is nearly identical to the APA, but in their definitions and in section 5.60-5.62 break it down into "Minor Home Occupation" and a "special-use" "Major Home Occupation". In short, both minor and major home occupations must limit the noise, smell, and traffic to that of a "typical Single Family Dwelling in the neighborhood", regulate signs, and limit or screen parking and tools from public view. Between both types, the work needs to be done "entirely within a dwelling or accessory structure [and] not occupy a square footage greater than 50% of the dwelling square feet". The minor version must be done solely by inhabitants, without employees; the major version allows for 2 or fewer nonresident employees. Please consider how these bounds fit or do not fit your vocation.
The sale comprises three tax parcels -- tax IDs : 40.1-2-22.002 (285 ac. south, assessed at $476k land + $484k improvements), 40.1-3-2.200 (115 ac. north, assessed at $235k land), & 40.1-2-16.000 (1.1 ac. residential, assessed at $40k land, $182k improvements). In sum, it is assessed at $1.4M with an equalization rate of 100% -- i.e., they asses it at full market value. The 2024 taxes summed to $16k -- a rounded $9.8k for the south parcel, $3.4k for the north parcel, and $2.6k for the residential parcel. Subdividing the land and building single family residences is obviously going to increase the total annual taxes, but this is where it stands today, and should give a hint as to what we might expect to pay per unit in the future. To the best of my knowledge, the state itself does not levy property taxes. Also to the best of my knowledge, no agricultural structures on the property are less than 10 years old, and so neither the 10-year nor lifetime exemption on farm building taxes should be rescinding; meaning the recent historical taxes should accurately predict the future.
If the town assesses the lot at $1.4M, why consider a $2.5M sale -- already reduced from $2.8? Well, we can and maybe ought to make a lower offer. But, first, the numbers. The land is assessed at $750k, which divided by 401 acres, gives you an assessed $1.9k/acre. The structures are assessed at $625k. If we went with a simple ratio of $2.5M asking : $1.4M assessed, we can imagine their asking price as $1.3M for the land (at $3.3k/acre), and $1.1M for the improvements. While I see some wiggle room there, I don't see much greed.
If there were a counterfactual farm out there with 400 acres and no structures, would we 1) re-build these exact same barns, and 2) at what cost? Hrm. The yea but nay : These are incredibly well-built steel hay barns, but with painted pine wooden siding; a heated barn for mechanics, but using propane for in-slab radiant heat, though an air-water heat pump for zone 5 is already available in Europe; and a very nicely built timber frame barn for horses, but without a ceiling and kitted-out tack room, so, in-someways, unfinished.
I have looked at farm after farm after farm, and have mostly felt the desire to light a match before I began my own work; I have the exact opposite feeling in this case. The structures are solid and perfectly suited to the demands of a 400-acre hay farm. What we would add -- regarding structures / equipment space for vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers, etc. -- does not reduce the need for what is already there, even if it might not utilize it. Which is a roundabout way to explain my thinking about buying into an established farm. Rebuilding it all seems to come-up somewhere around the assessed and asking price, especially in light of the per acreage cost, which is not high. In this case, on the structure front, it is a relatively easy 'yes'. What is there is good and necessary.
So, if we want this, how do we do it? I have come at this from the beginning with the idea of forming a Land and Property LLC to own and manage just that, where each unit has voting rights as a contributing member, structured like a cooperative, but without the weird looks from banks. I also started with the idea of purchasing the property outright in cash, with no mortgage, and, if necessary, using a commercial property equity loan for home construction, being wary of debt in the face of pestilence, disease, locusts and a sometimes wrathful god. But construction loans, traditional banks, the farm credit system, the FSA, and the USDA might all provide alternative routes of financing.
It would also be possible to sell each subdivided property, with a conservation easement and HOA to manage the interrelation of the whole. In this case, the typical funding routes more clearly line-up, but I am leery of pulling the whole apart and then putting it back together in this way, though I can be otherwise convinced.
In the end, considering costs, we are looking at something like :
Up-front
purchase : $2.5M / 12 =~ $208k ($200k if a $2.4M offer were accepted.)
home construction: $150k (Possibly possibly if we build them ourselves.)
studio : $50k
business startup : $35k
Totaling ~ $445k
Annual
taxes : $1.1k land + $3k residence =~ $4k/year
farm, food : $1.5-8k/adult/year
power (gas, electric): unknown, unexplored
upkeep & maintenance : unknown, unexplored
insurance : unknown, unexplored
Totaling $10k+/year
For those of us looking at the educational options for our children, here is what's available.
Public School
Willsboro has a public school, K-12, 4 miles up the road.
Keene Valley Public School, K-12. A 32mi, 45min drive. They take out-of-district students, and their size and style may be preferable to some.
Private School
Lakeside School at Black Kettle Farm, Essex, NY. Pre-K through K. A 6 mile, 10 minute drive, No posted cost. They would be interested in providing further grades -- as they once did -- but they need the critical mass of interested students to do so.
Lake Champlain Waldorf School, Shelburne, VT. Pre-K through High School. A 50min (ferry-ride + drive across the lake). $10-20k/student/year.
Vermont Day School, Shelburne, VT. Pre-K through 8th Grade. A 50min (ferry ride + drive across the lake). $18k/student/year
North Country School, Lake Placid, NY. Grades 4-9. A 36 mile, 50min drive. $27k/student/year
Home schooling
New York State
Key Points
Time, Days, & Hours
Grades 1 - 6 : 900 hours / year ; 180 days/year; 25 hours/week ; 5 hours/day
Grades 7 - 12 : 990 hours/year ; 180 days/year; 27.5 hours/week ; 5.5 hours/day
Flexibility : "Instruction at home is usually given within the general timeframe of the normal school day, but greater flexibility in scheduling is possible. For example, parents may choose to provide instruction on weekends or in the evening. The total amount of instructional time per week should be generally comparable to that of the public school."
Credentials : "State law does not require any specific credentials for the person(s) providing home instruction."
Tutors : "Parents may engage the services of a tutor to provide instruction for all or a portion of the home instruction program."
Group Instruction : "Parents providing home instruction to their children may arrange to have their children instructed in a group situation for particular subjects but not for a majority of the home instruction program. Where groups of parents organize to provide group instruction by a tutor for a majority of the instructional program, they are operating a religious or independent school and are no longer providing home instruction."
Age of Instruction : "The law now requires children who turn six on or before December 1 to receive instruction from the start of the school year in September of that year."