Taavo Somer, the weirdo artist/designer/"method" architect (when designing the new nautical-themed bar Rusty Knot, he took to dressing like a drunken sailor) was profiled in New York this week. "In the profile he talks about the house he just bought upstate and how his parents were horrified at the price," whispers a tipster. "I don't know what he ended up paying exactly but the asking price was $1.295 million. It's on 38 acres just outside of High Falls in Ulster County." Oooh. Upstate-house porn! Click to see what designing hip Manhattan bars the Rusty Knot and Freemans will buy you... and what the profile says inspired Somer to maybe start, like, a farm-themed bar in Brooklyn...

"It sounds corny," he says, "but I'm kind of into figuring out a way to be more self-sufficient. You know, like really getting back to the earth. I've gotten really into gardening, right? And the other day I was gardening—gardening!—and I started thinking, You know, what if I, like, become a farmer. I mean, seriously. Maybe the next thing I'll do will be a farm." But the more he speaks, the clearer it becomes that Somer already has a very particular idea of farming. "I'd like to have a farm where people could hang out and eat, and maybe there'll be, like, a kind of metropolitan outpost. A bed and breakfast, but more rustic. I've been looking at some spaces in Brooklyn..."

[Photograph of Somer: Chris Buck for New York magazine]