Looking in the Rear View Mirror at 90MPH

Let’s look backwards from today on this post.   I have been asked many times, how long I have been working on this Redhook Green Project, so I thought it might be helpful to review the process to date.  With not quite four months from the idea's inception, I feel as if I am making great progress in building a team.  I will be posting more detail on many of these milestones, in the next week or so.

• July 20 – I have been noodling the idea of how to live a more "green-ish" lifestyle for a while, this project 'hatched' while visiting my cousin Armand’s country home in Roxbury, NY.  The concept was to construct a factory-built country home in a place like Reinbeck, NY.
• July 24 – Met with friend/restaurateur/real estate developer Andrew Glassberg to discuss Brooklyn real estate and development projects.  After thinking through the country home idea, I thought it a better idea to build a 'country home' in Brooklyn.
• July 24 – Ran into a friend, Marc Koch the resident manager of my former loft building.  We chatted about my new passion and he offered to introduce me to Redhook “land baron” Greg O’Connell to assist in my search for land.
• August 5 – Letter to Modular ‘friendly’ Architects in NY area requesting a meeting to discuss my ideas and to understand their experience.
• August 10 – First meeting with ‘modular focused’ architect in SoHo
• August 10-27 Phone calls with various Tri-State ‘modular focused’ architects
• August 27 – Greg O’Connell meeting yields little tangible results, but conversation does confirm find the right site at the right price will not be easy.
• September 9 – First meeting with Jim Garrison Principal; Garrsion Architects.  Felt confident we would work together on this project.
• September 10 – First meeting with Hank Widmaier; Helmsley Spear Real Estate to assist in the search and represent me in a transaction
• September 13 – First discussion with Brooklyn landowner/builder to discuss his lots near the Fairway in Redhook.
• September 16 – During one of many scooter recon missions, I found a corner lot on the corner of Conover and Dikeman in Redhook.  Meets basic requirements, but Van Brundt lots wider.
• September 18 – Meeting with seller to discuss two Van Brundt lots, deal not possible based high cost of acquisition by seller.
• October 13 – Executed agreement for home design with Garrison Architects
• October 13 – Made Offer on Conover Street lot & Offer accepted pending contract
• October 22 – Long time friend and blogger Ellis Posner recommends I chronicle this project on a blog.  
• October 26 – My first blog www.redhookgreen.com launched
• October 20 – First Schematic Designs reviewed for  – 3 different options presented with Jim Garrison and Mathanki Kalapathy.
• October 27 – Basic Design Agreed upon with additional square footage; a hybrid of earlier versions
• November 6 – Site Survey, Test Boring, Environmental Testing and title reports all in hand with satisfactory results.
• November 09 – Conover Street lot purchase contract completed and executed.
• November 13 – Modular homebuilder selected.

Thanks for your interest, look forward to your thoughts, questions and comments.