Greetings, this is Dale Lehmer, founder and owner of Antique Woods and Colonial Restorations, and Vintage Barns, Woods and Restorations. Let me personally welcome you here to our new NNY Home Sites section of our Web page and invite you to read through some of the information I have put together for you. I am looking for some special clients. Can we interest you in purchasing a fabulous parcel of land and a historic barn frame or log house to build there for your home? These are really fabulous building sites and I hope you will take the time to read about them.

  I have been working with barns, antique log homes and barn home conversions for over 32 years full time. We have helped design and built well over 50 barn home conversions, antique log homes, and timber frame additions over these years. We have probably dismantled over a 1000 structures and perhaps put up another 200 barns- to remain what they were before - barns. With this as the backdrop, I have decided to carve out 3 exceptional (and I mean exceptional) building sites from our very private and extremely beautiful 100-acre farm here in St. Lawrence County, NY where we currently live in an old abandoned farmhouse we restored. I am offering these parcels for sale. They will be approximately 5+ acres each and will all have some deed restrictions and protective covenants. There will be no trailers or manufactured homes, and no home occupations or hobbies that would necessitate the storage of cars, boats, farming equipment, washing machines outside, beyond your own personal belongings. It is very important to us to keep this valley tasteful, clean and elegant. This issue can be discussed further at a later time.

  I am also offering several great barn frames, with some preliminary barn- home conversion plans, in the hopes of perhaps finding someone who would be interested in purchasing a parcel from us and then working with us to design and actually do the construction of the home right here in my own back yard so to speak. I am personally going to put my hands on these homes and give them all the knowledge, skill, creativity, and love I have developed over the years for these wonderful old structures. All three of these parcels of land are magnificent and they are worthy of stunning homes. The parcels of land are available with or without us building your home.

  Our entire farm is like a bowl and small valley, surrounded by mountain ridges and a river. We cannot see any other houses from our home and it will still be this way when these three parcels have homes. The immediate area surrounding our property is also scarcely populated and they are all generally nice homes. There are no trailers or run down homes in the immediate area. The area West of our property to the bridge is vacant as there is no electric there. There are literally hundreds of acres of undeveloped land surrounding our farm. As secluded as it is, we are still only 4 miles from Gouverneur and 20 from Canton. Gouverneur, population of about 4000, has a good hospital, a number of different churches, several dentists and private physicians, full size grocery store and 2 drug stores, several good restaurants and shopping area. If you have children, they would attend Gouverneur School system and would be transported by bus. Gouverneur also has a private Catholic school. Canton and nearby Potsdam have 4 colleges between the two small lively country towns-- SUNY Canton and St. Lawrence University in Canton, and Clarkson and SUNY Potsdam in Potsdam. We are located roughly 35 miles from Watertown, 90 miles from Lake placid, 35 miles from Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence River, 60 miles from Lake Ontario, 90 miles from Syracuse, and 75 miles from Ottawa, Canada. Northern NY State is one of the best kept secrets in real estate and listed in the NY Times recently as one of the best areas to find affordable homes and wonderful land in the entire country.

  The Spring Pond and Ridge Plateau parcels will also have deeded access to a fabulous river access point further up the property, in a very large stand of white pine trees and several large oaks, that is back off the main road about 700 feet or so. This area is very private, very beautiful and elevated above the river for a wonderful view. We will put in an access road so you can drive reasonably close to this area but it is also a wonderful hike. The mowed path that leads to this area will go through our pastures that are full of wild flowers. Once at the Pines, there is a path that lead down to a flat area right at the rivers edge where you can keep your fishing boat, canoes or kayaks, and also have a picnic or take a swim. This is one of our favorite areas of these lands, and particularly beautiful in winter when there is snow. You will probably run into us from time to time back there. This is where we were married.

  I have written a fairly thorough description of these 3 outstanding parcels of land. If you have gotten this far, I assume you are at least somewhat interested, so I will take the time to tell you as much about them as I can so you can decide if they are of interest to you. We can also send you some more photographs, but if you are really interested, you should take the time to come see them in person. The surveys for these properties will be done at the time of sale so there is some flexibility on size of parcels and we could make them somewhat larger than 5 acre if needed to make the whole project work. We will pay for the surveys. The real estate taxes in this area are low by most standards and will have to be ascertained after the parcels are sub divided. We will also consider a sales agreement and owner financing. If you have any questions please feel free to call me at 315-287-2535.