It’s never too early to start shopping for next year’s holiday gifts.
Maybe you want to splurge on something for yourself.
Or perhaps you’re looking for that ultimate “I’ve-got-it-and-you-don’t” Westport status symbol.
Whatever the reason, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance: Leases on Alan Sterling’s 78.6-acre shellfish beds are up for sale.
Alan Sterling hauls up a basket of oysters. (AP photo/Kathy Willens)
The private shellfish farm — just off Compo Beach’s Cedar Point — is at least as attractive as owning your own vegetable garden, putting green or tennis court. Due to local legislation, of course, owning a shellfish bed is much rarer.
The possibilities are endless: Invite your friends to an oyster and clam dinner, featuring your very own bivalves.
If eating local food is important, here’s a way to do so — while controlling the quality of your family’s food supply.
Sure, it’s a vanity asset — but it’s quite possibly a tax writeoff.
The beds are listed for $225,000. Negotiations are possible, depending on the terms of sale.
(Interested? contact Skip Lane: 203-326-5892; skip.lane@cushwake.com.)
Alan Sterling culls through his oyster haul. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Fantastic investment and so unique!
There is nothing like a good hard shuck in the morning, no?
Seriously though this could work.
Talk about making the most of Wesptort as a coastal town. I’ve never heard of this kind of property coming up for sale. Totally envy the person/family who acquires this.
This blog really displays the flavours of Westport. Did you ever consider publishing a 06880danwoog.com Cook Book based on local produce including Alan’s Oysters? I know the typography lets them mature through some pretty rough storms, and he’s adamant about not pulling them up too soon. Enormous pride. Makes local deliverys straight to customers’ homes.
Backyard vegetable gardens, llama farms, chicken coops, i.e., owning your own shellfish beds has got to be the next trend. I wonder if the 78.6 for sale can be subdivided?
High protein. High price. Looks like a lotta work. No thanks. Will stick with my alpaca.
Smart move. You could qualify for a subsidy from Uncle Sap. The alpaca lobby has managed to get alpaca growers a place at the public trough. Your tax dollars at work.
Are you speaking nasty about Pawky and Guber???
If 12 pack uses the alpaca wool to make clothes, exporting them to the Afgans, and employing 40 workers, why should he not be subsidized by the federal government??? Beats the Stimulus of short term jobs digging holes in the ground.
Because it is a waste of taxpayer money. If there is a demand for the product, there is no need for a government handout. If there is no demand for the product then the government should not be subsidizing its production. Besides Joe Phlebitze could use the same money and employ 50 people making hockey pucks or whatever.
Then cut out the water at the trough for big oil/big farm and the rest of them. Hardly a waste of tax money if 12 Pack can’t afford to compete with the Asian market for his alpaca sweaters. Look what the GI Bill did for WWII guys and a return of seven fold for Uncle Sam.
Right, first you underpay draftees for 4 or 5 years and then you try to make it up to them, if they lived, by paying for a college education. Hardly a fair deal for the draftees. If 12 Pack can’t compete, then he should be out of business. BTW I think the buggy whip guys tried the same argument.
I think my point is long term investment by the government may bring substantial results rather than dumping billions as mere handouts to big business. A totally free market, avoid of any tax money, may be your ideal but not a realtiy.
I gotta reread the Constitution. Seriously.
The “returns” on government investment are fictional; the government does not do double entry bookkeeping. The money the government “invests”, spends actually, was taken from the private sector where it would have been put to whatever use the owners of the funds chose. When the government takes money to spend, some govt. flunky establishes his priorities and invests accordingly, the taxpayer be damned. The government “handout” to business argument just furthers my point, so thank you. Right now, Uncle Sap is “investing”, spending, taxpayer dollars to bail out VC firms that invested in alternative energy plays and embryonic stem cell research. None of these projects are economically viable without room at the publc trough; money wasted. You are bailing out the clods who park their Porsches in the “No Parking” lane at Stop and Shop, and Uncle Sap has you convinced that he is “investing’ your money. BTW I have this bridge….
We differ. The “investment” in the GI Bill paid back 7 fold in tax revenue from better educated and better paid ex-GI’s. SBA loans have proved the same thing as well as student loans. You seem to infer that it is merely taking from Paul to pay Peter at the “trough.” In your world, we would have no taxes. Survival of the fittest. Free market. Gee, that sounds vaguely like the Enron house of cards. I believe government can do good things. I would like to see it at a smaller level but small government can be bad too.
The Enron house of cards was made possible by government meddling im the price of energy. I did not say that we would have no taxes; that would be your position not mine. I said nothing of survival of the fittest. Once again those are your words not nine. I did say that the government does not invest it spends, and what is spends is OPM. If the government had not “invested” in WW II and drafted 10,000,000 Americans, GDP would have higher in 1945 -1950 than it was. The GI Bill was a feeble effort to compensate draftees for the wrong that was done to them. The “return” was not seven fold, it was negative when one uises double entry bookkeeping. You seem to be willing to ignore the shadow costs of the capital the government “invests.” That money belonged to someone who had a use for it. What we have now is creeping totalitarianism and cronyism. It is not a legitimate activity of government to make some worse off in order to make others better off. Such activities cannot be shown to increase the general welfare.
The government, with pressure from ’43, deregulated energy in California and Enron went crazy. When the cat is away, the mice tend to play. We would be speaking German if it had not been for World War II. My reading indicates a 7 times return on college benefits to GI’s. We are arguing words. If the government spends or “invests” money in Alzheimer research and a cure results, the welfare of all would be benefited.
Clearly not true, the welfare of those who get Alzheimers might benefit, but the welfare of those who get a disease from which funds were diverted to fund the Alzheimer cure would suffer. The government allocates resources in direct proportion to to the power of the special interest groups at the public trough. You prefer reserach into Alzheimers others might prefer a cure for breast cancer, or some other disease. The return was negative if you do the full accounting. Ignoring costs is a great way to show a positive return. BTW I thought war was not the answer.
But Alzheimer’s affects most of us through direct illness or diverted costs that might go to other “spending.” Might just lower the price of health care as well. I am not following your logic. If the government is going to spend (which we know it is), why shouldn’t it go to receptients that are going to benefit us as a whole. You seem to be advocating that everyone hang on to their own bucks and let the free market determine the priorities and solutions. Yes?
If such spending did “benefit us all” you might have a case. but it doesn’t. There are many different diseases that afflict us and by your logic the government should fund any research that might just lower the price of health care by curing one or more of these diseases. Your preference might be Alzheimers, ome one else’s might be breast cancer. How do you choose to spend scarce resources if your some government flunky?
The pinpoint is those maladies that affect the most people i.e. heart disease and Alzheimers. You “cure” Alzheimers and a huge dent in the cost of the elderly health care. Plus Uncle Joe doesn’t go ballistic on ya.
Cancer affects more people. If you want to find a cure for a disease, you do not ask the government to do it. It is ill suited to such a task. To paraphrase Larry Kramer; If the government were not in charge of AIDs research we would have a cure by now. Government workers have absolutely no incentive to find a cure for anything. Their primary objective is to expand their budget.
Talk to any oncologist on a cure. They say they need money to attract the Harvard med graduate to go into research instead of doing boobs in Hollywood. AIDS had a political overtone to it in the 80’s. Like lung cancer now.
Every government run program has a political overtone to it; it is axiomatic. The government has no incentive to solve your problems.
Perhaps I am just getting old but I am not comprehending your message or your model? It seems that you are advocating anarchy with no government as the best solution. If the government can not direct funds to assist the welfare of the general masses and has invalid objectives to such cause, then all we really need is a free market and a military?
The government does not assist the welfare of the general masses, that is not the objective of government. The objective is to assist just enough special interests to get elected. Making someone worse off in order to make your buddies better off is not a method for increasing the general welfare:; back to Pareto once again.
Novel . . . and intriguing!
A man from Weston leased or owned a bunch of oyster beds in the Sherwood Mill Pond 30 or 40 years ago. They never worked out for him.
Great chance for someone to get in on the multi million dollar oyster industry for pennies on the dollar! Great, high producing beds….
Success isn’t inevitable and neither is the ability to derive enjoyment from working land or the sea. These sorts of investments certainly aren’t meant for your Average Joe.
Scam.
Never trust a Bulldog.
It all seems a bit ‘fishy’.
Hopefully David Waldman doesn’t read these posts or he may buy the beds and figure out a way to drive pilings into them and put up waterfront housing…
Or else buy them, jack up the rents and force the oysters to move.
Aussies have a wonderful saying about the tallest poppy being the first one to get it’s head chopped off (and, still the others try to grow as tall and it, itself, grows again).
To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish.
Looks like fun! Can you do that regardless of the weather? Love the gloves…
capt.jeff KNOWS :-)… so does Ric J.
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Forget about “lifestyle winemaking”, this is a much more fun way to explore a passion for growing stuff. I do hope someone can benefit from this great oportunity.
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