"far to"...specific spot?

[Mark A Mandel]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, sagehen wrote:

#While the expression "far to the north (south, east, west)"  is normal
#and familiar, "far to (specific spot)", which I ran across in a New
#England writer today, looks very odd to me.  Is this a regionalism or
#idiosyncratic?

I can only get it meaning "the distance from here (or other location) to
[specified spot] is far", and at that it seems to be almost negative
polarity: e.g. (made-up) "I asked if it was very far to Shrewsbury, and
they couldn't tell me."

I can't figure more about the construction you're asking about without
more context.

-- Mark A. Mandel