Living Here
Understanding what it means to own and maintain a home in the Adirondacks
Owning an Adirondack property is different from owning elsewhere. The seasons are more dramatic. The distance from services is real. The building envelope faces harsher conditions. What works in a suburban setting often doesn’t apply here.
Please know that these homes can last generations with proper attention. But success here requires understanding the local context, planning ahead, and building relationships with people who know this environment.
Please visit our pages and videos to learn more…
Managing From Afar
Most second homeowners live hours away. That requires systems, not just optimism.
Efficiently Managing Two Homes (11 videos)
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This series is about efficiently managing a vacation home while you continue to manage your main home. The series covers topics such as automating your home(s), including steps and considerations for implementing smart home technology, streamlining your financial systems, building a home support team, maximizing time and energy efficiency, and accomplishing this in ways that minimize your time and money commitment while maintaining the lifetime of your systems.
The series is targeted as an introduction to many of the concepts, with ideas, brands and models, and basic steps to help a novice navigate the steps involved.
Property Maintenance
Adirondack homes face ice, snow load, freeze-thaw cycles, and wildlife. Prevention matters more than repair. Finding reliable help here requires understanding how the local service economy works. Good contractors are busy, and the region is spread out.
Contractor Relations and Management (5 videos)
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Working with contractors is a key part of a successful strategy for smoothly maintaining your vacation home, especially if you live at a distance.
This series explores strategies for ensuring that your contractor relationships are smooth and mutually beneficial, and touches on ideas for helping keep it that way. Some of the topics we address have to do with planning before you hire, researching and vetting, estimates and payments, communications, local rules and permits, and how to stay top of mind with your contractors.
Maintenance By the Season (the first video in this series will be published on March 20 2026)
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In this series we discuss different seasonal considerations for maintaining your home, and provide checklists for spring, summer, fall, and winter maintenance.
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