At the advice of a boatload of people (we’re sticking with the Amundsen theme), we met with a Land Planner this week.

We think our goals for Bartol Field have been fairly consistent from the beginning : Find a nice spot for a new house, protect as much of the parcel as possible and not go bankrupt.  But the details involved in achieving those objectives — and all of those objectives — have been more complex than anticipated.  Tree Farm opportunities.  Open Space tax benefits.  Abutter sales.  Five-year breakouts.  Watersheds.  Toss in the fact that we’re already getting inquiries about a possible Cove Road lot and it was clear that we needed some help.

It was definitely time well spent.  In the course of about two hours, we had quickly roughed out both a short-term and long-term approach to managing the property.  And while much of it was consistent with our early “uninformed” opinions, the notion of using building envelopes to manage sight lines and privacy was a welcome new notion.

There’s no doubt that this project is already starting to take on the warm patina of a well-used ATM machine.  But we can’t help but think that these week’s withdrawal was money well spent.