Press Stories
 
Saving the Farmhouse
A native Iowan takes a Catskills weekender back to its roots.
 Randy Florke and Sean Maloney, Callicoon, New York. Randy Florke, who grew up in rural Iowa and trained in fashion, now lives in Manhattan, but only during the week. Each Friday, and major holidays, he heads to Sullivan County in the Catskills, to a renovated 1910 farmhouse he has transformed into a country charmer.
He shares the 5 bedroom house with his partner, Sean Maloney, and his adopted son, Jesus, 8. Maloney, Deputy Staff Secretary for the Clinton Administration, comutes from Washington D.C., when he's not traveling with the president. Then there's Emma, a chololate Lab, and a bulldog named Ronco. The family may not be traditional, but their home is a slice of Apple pie. "I wanted it humble, simple and comfortable - the way it was built to look," says Florke, who still owns a farm back home.
Fortunately, little had been done to "improve" the new house, other than replacing the roof and adding a new electrical system and furnace. "Most of the work went into bringing the bathroom back to the way it was." A '50s rennovation included plastic wall tiles and a built-in bathtub. Florke ripped out the outmoded modernizations and added beadboard panneling and vintage fixtures. He didn't even reglaze the clawfoot tub, retaining chips and nicks. "Sometimes we tend to get a little too perfect," he says.
Florke cleaned up the house with Benjamin Moore Historic Collection paints and brightened it with canvas slipcovers he dyed himself and "hung in the sun to wash out a little." He outfitted the rooms with furniture from his Greenwich Villiage shop, The Rural Collection.
The word "integrity" comes up a lot in his conversation. He avoids ellaborate fabric window treatments, he says, because they can look out of place ("Let's just say they don't add anything to a house with this kind of integrity.") - and because they're expensive. "I am all about budget," he jokes. " I did new doors for the '50s cupboards in the kitchen for $75 worth of wainscoting and glass - and crown molding I pulled out of a trash bin in the city."
 While the house is easy to maintain, "there's a little suffering for art. Those pine floors are not the easiest to take care of, and neither are the painted ones," he admits.
Florke is something of a jack-of-all-home-trades. He not only deals in antiques, but he also sells real estate and offers interior design and restoration services, and he's thinking of opening a construction company. "Last summer Emma had puppies," he adds, "so I could even provide a family dog to go with the new house."
What amazes him is how accessible country living can be. "I bought my house for $84,000 and it sits on 22 acres just two hours from Manhattan," he enthuses. "The Catskills are the forgotten frontier."
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