LAKEVILLE — After at least 10 years of planning and maneuvering, two units of affordable housing are ready for occupants.
The commissioner of the state Department of Housing, Seila Mosquera-Bruno, was among the interested parties at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the building site on Perry Street in Lakeville, along with State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64), Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand, Jocelyn Ayer from the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity and Jennifer Kronholm Clark of the Salisbury Housing Trust and the Salisbury Affordable Housing Commission.
Rand recalled the town eventually foreclosing on the property, the site of a long-shuttered dry-cleaning establishment.
He said things came to a head when the roof caved in.
He tracked down the owner in Arizona, and asked if there was any chance of receiving the $60,000 or so in back taxes. “He said ‘no way,’ so we foreclosed.”
Rand said it had been so long since the business closed that clothing was found, packaged and still ready for pickup. “I delivered them.”
Things got complicated because of worries about contamination from the chemicals used in the dry-cleaning process. Grants were obtained. Environmental testing was done.
And finally the site’s new owners, the Salisbury Housing Trust, was able to put up the two three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes, which marked the end of an effort that began in earnest in 2013.
The two homes are Perry Street have three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and unfinished basements.Patrick L. Sullivan
Clark said they’re not quite done. Carports with solar panels will be put up shortly.
Clark thanked everyone for their efforts. “This is perseverance in brick and mortar form.”
She said affordable housing groups in other towns often ask how Salisbury has made progress in creating a variety of affordable housing options.
“The only difference between our town and theirs is we started earlier, 25 years ago.”
Ayer said the two Lakeville units are part of a group of 10 affordable housing units in Litchfield County.
She praised the builders, Signature Building Systems, for their quick and efficient work in putting up the modular units.
Ayer had a gift for the housing commissioner, Mosquera-Bruno.
“If you come to Litchfield County in July or August, you get a large zucchini from someone’s garden, in a Tractor Supply bag.”
Amid laughter she handed the vegetable over.
Mosquera-Bruno said, “It’s wonderful to see how the community comes together.”
Department of Housing Commissioner Seila Mosequera-Bruno accepted a traditional Northwest Corner gift of a large zucchini from Jocelyn Ayer.Patrick L. Sullivan
Jim Archer of Elk Ravine Farm takes a seat on Billy the water buffalo on Wednesday, Sept. 10.
Archer bought the farm 30 years ago. He was living in Katonah, New York — where he grew up — and finding success as a contractor when he decided he wanted plenty of land in the country.
He bought the 90-acre property and spent 10 years prepping and building before he could move onto the farm. Then the real work could begin.
Archer has a passion for environmentalism and conservation that runs deep. His farm is under conservation easement with the Dutchess Land Conservancy, and the main goal of his operation is to raise livestock to aid in maintaining endangered habitats.
Archer raises Scottish Highlands cattle and Southeast Asian water buffalo because of their affinity for rugged terrain and dense, unappetizing foliage. They serve as all-natural weed-eaters, Archer said, going into habitats and eating plants that more typical livestock would avoid.
“They’re replacing an herbivore that has become extinct through millennia,” Archer said.
This strategy centers natural habitat management strategies rather than herbicides that could leach into water tables, potentially causing more harm to critters than the good that would come from removing invasive plants.
The water buffalo are especially fond of an invasive called phragmites — also known as common reed. These non-native plants form dense clods that choke out native species, according to the New York Invasive Species Information website, eventually killing all diversity in a wetland.
“Scottish highlanders don’t want to go where the footing is bad,” Archer said. “So I asked if we could proceed with Southeast Asian water buffalo and we’ve been working with them for about two years now.”
The operation is under expansion with 13 water buffalo and between 35 and 40 highlands cattle.
Archer’s environmental work is expensive, though, and he refuses to accept donations or even volunteer labor to help him with his operation. Instead, he sells educational tours of his Amenia farm to fund the conservation efforts. “I have to earn what I get,” Archer said.
Jim Archer keeps sheep, goats, pigs, emus, horses and a variety of fowl on his farm on Smithfield Valley Road in Amenia.
Archer has amassed a menagerie of animals at his 90-acre farm — all raised from adolescence by him and his fiancee — including pigs, sheep, highlands cattle, water buffalo, emus, goats, pheasants, horses, pigeons, ducks and peafowl.
Tourists start by meeting the highlands cattle, the animal that generally draws a group to the farm, Archer said. “Everybody wants to pet a fluffy cow.”
Archer’s tours put visitors in direct contact with nearly every animal on his farm, except for the horses. Those are just for pulling Archer’s restored stage coaches, including a re-creation horse-drawn ambulance — a hobby for him and his fiancée.
The experience can be overwhelming for some. “I get a lot of people that cry,” Archer said, because many of his visitors are urban or suburbanites with limited experience with animals, and the interactions can be moving.
“Somebody was suffering a loss of their partner,” Archer said. “They came here to see the animals to help through their grieving process. Billy, the water buffalo, was laying down so she sat down and he put his head in her lap. The whole time we were there — 30, 45 minutes — she was just there bonding with him.”
“Emus are dinosaurs,” Jim Archer said as he exposed the claw located on his emu’s wing.Nathan Miller
Nathan Miller
The most divisive animals on the property are the emus. Archer has five of them that live in an enclosure with some goats. The emus are curious and friendly, but they have a funny way of showing it. The birds have to explore things using beaks, leading to a lot of nibbling and pecking as visitors stand in the pen with them. Some people, understandably, find that a little annoying, Archer said.
Interested visitors can book tours through Archer’s website, www.elkravinefarm.com, or by texting 914-262-4737. A two-hour tour of the farm for a group of four people costs $250. An appointment is required to visit the farm.
The Haystack Book Festival, a program of the Norfolk Hub, brings renowned writers and thinkers to Norfolk for conversation. Celebrating its fifth season this fall, the festival will gather 18 writers for discussions at the Norfolk Library on Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 through 5.
Jerome A. Cohen, author of the memoir “Eastward, Westward: A Lifein Law.”Haystack Book Festival
For example, “Never Take the Rule of Law for Granted: China and the Dissident,” will be held Saturday, Sept. 20, at 4 p.m. at the Norfolk Library. It brings together Jerome A. Cohen, author of “Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law,” and Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong King’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic” in dialogue with journalist Richard Hornik to discuss the rule of law and China.
The Council on Foreign Relations stated, “Few Americans have done more than Jerome A. Cohen to advance the rule of law in East Asia. He established the study of Chinese law in the United States. An advocate for human rights, Cohen has been a scholar, teacher, lawyer, and activist for sixty years.”
Cohen, a professor at New York University School of Law and director of its U.S.-Asia Law Institute, revealed his long view on China: “We are now witnessing another extreme in the pendulum’s swing toward repression. Xi Jinping is likely to outlive me but ‘no life lives forever.’ There will eventually be another profound reaction to the current totalitarian era.”
Mark Clifford, author of “The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong’s Greatest Dissident, and China’s Most Feared Critic.”Haystack Book Festival
In “The Troublemaker,” Clifford chronicles Lai’s life from child refugee to pro-democracy billionaire to his current imprisonment by the Chinese Communist Party. Clifford is president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, a Walter Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and holds a PhD in history from the University of Hong Kong. He was the former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post and The Standard (Hong Kong and Seoul).
Journalist Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.Haystack Book Festival
Richard Hornik, adjunct senior fellow at the East-West Center, will moderate the discussion. Hornik is the former executive editor of AsiaWeek, news service director of Time magazine, and former Time bureau chief in Warsaw, Boston, Beijing and Hong Kong.
Betsy Lerner, author of “Shred Sisters,” is giving the 2025 Brendan Gill lecture at the Haystack Book Festival.Haystack Book Festival
The Brendan Gill Lecture is a highlight of the festival honoring longtime Norfolk resident Brendan Gill, who died in1997. Gill wrote for The New Yorker magazine for fifty years. Betsy Lerner, New York Times-recognized author of “Shred Sisters,” will deliver this year’s lecture on Friday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. at the Norfolk Library.
Visit haystackbookfestival.org to register. Admission is free.
