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Callicoon is a relatively affordable alternative for buyers who have been priced out of residential markets elsewhere, real estate agents in the area said. For example, Ms. Homa and Mr. Windheim found a hunt for a weekend house in their price range north of New York City was unproductive.
“We looked up and down the Hudson River for an older house, but we didn’t find one that fit our budget,” Ms. Homa said. They bought their 1880’s three-bedroom, one-bath farmhouse on three acres for $55,000 eight years ago, and they have spent $50,000 to build a back porch and make cosmetic improvements to the structure.
Their house in Damascus, which is considered a part of the Callicoon real estate market, is just a short walk over a small bridge to the movie theater and a food store on the New York side of the border.
In today’s market, Ms. Homa and Mr. Windheim’s house would fetch about $275,000, said Kathleen A. Langley, an agent with Klimchok Real Estate in Callicoon.
Although Callicoon covers only half a square mile, the area’s real estate market encompasses all of the 35-square-mile town of Delaware, along with Damascus and the neighboring towns of Fremont, Cochecton and Callicoon — the latter being separate from the hamlet of the same name.
Interest in the area peaked after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, especially among New York City residents with children, said Thomas J. Freda, the president of Matthew J. Freda Real Estate in Callicoon, a business his father started some 30 years ago.
Christiane Fischer-Harling, a chief executive officer of an art insurance company, said that “especially since 9/11, it’s been extremely important for our family to have a safe haven outside of the city.” She spends weekends and part of each summer in Callicoon with her husband, Bernhard Harling, a public relations executive, and their three daughters.
The couple, who live full-time in Long Island City, Queens, bought their wood-frame, two-bedroom house on five acres four years ago for $150,000. Today it would sell for about $260,000 — just slightly less than what it would cost to buy a modest, three-bedroom house in the area, Ms. Langley said.
Prices for undeveloped acreage vary, depending on the property’s proximity to the river and its views of the countryside. Four prime acres on the Delaware recently sold for $250,000, but some lots go for only $10,000 an acre, Ms. Langley said. Most houses are built on two-to-five-acre lots, or larger. In the Beechwoods section of Callicoon, on a hilltop area dotted with dairy farms, a five-acre lot is listed at $135,000.
A decade ago, the Callicoon area was not a popular place for second-home owners, although those seeking a remote getaway at bargain prices bought “handyman specials” and fixed them up, Ms. Langley said.
The market, hot for five years, has cooled somewhat this year, reflecting residential trends nationally, Mr. Freda said. The latest trend in the Callicoon market, he noted, was the influx of “30-something buyers who want to own a house but can’t afford one in New York City or its suburbs.”
Lay of the Land
POPULATION 216 full-timers live in the hamlet of Callicoon, according to the 2000 census; 2,800 live in the Town of Delaware, of which Callicoon is a part, according to estimates this year by Sullivan County.
SIZE .5 square miles for the hamlet of Callicoon; 35 square miles for the Town of Delaware.
LOCATION Western Sullivan County, N.Y., 120 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
WHO’S BUYING Singles and couples in the arts and finance from the New York City area.
GETTING THERE By car from the George Washington Bridge, take the Palisades Interstate Parkway north for 17 miles to the New York State Thruway north; continue for 21 miles and, at Exit 16, take Route 17 west for 45 miles to Exit 104; then take Route 17B to the hamlet of Callicoon. Do not turn off toward Callicoon Center.
WHILE YOU’RE LOOKING The Western Hotel, in the center of the hamlet (22 Upper Main Street, 845-887-9871) is a six-room 154-year-old inn with a tap room, a dining room and a liquor store. Rates are $100 a night. Hickory Lane Farmhouse (36 Hickory Lane, Damascus, Pa.; 570-224-6270; www.hickorylanefarmhouse.com) consists of a small two-bedroom apartment that sleeps five and is attached to a main house. A Friday-to-Monday three-night stay is $300; for one week, the rate is $600.
