Blog Post #5 - From Greendale to Fairview: Stonestreet Homes Through the Ages

Stonestreet Family

31 Mar

📝 Blog Post #5 - From Greendale to Fairview: Stonestreet Homes Through the Ages

You can learn a lot about a family from the homes they build and the stories they tell about them.

From Hillside, the original home owned by Levi Stonestreet in the 1840s, to the brick-pulled-by-horse homesteads of the early 1900s and the well-worn floorboards of Springdale and Rainecourt, the Stonestreet homes of Blayney are more than places they’re chapters in a living story.

🏡 Pleasant View

Built by Harry Stonestreet (son of William Levi) in 1929, this home was a true feat. He transported the bricks and building materials by wagon drawn by eight horses. “Pleasant View” became a family dairy farm for decades. Generations lived, worked, and weathered storms there, in every sense.

🌿 Greendale

The home of Cecil and Robyn Stonestreet, Greendale sits as another stone in the path of the Stonestreet legacy. Their photo from 1981 captures not just a building, but a living garden and the effort of hands that kept it going. These homes were passed down like heirlooms, alongside family recipes and favourite sayings.

🧶 Fairview

Another cornerstone was Fairview, home to Levi James and Ann Stonestreet. In family photos around 1915, the porch is filled with women in hats and men with calloused hands and a thick sense of history in the air.

🪵 Springdale

Then there’s Springdale, perhaps the best documented in recent years. Purchased by William Ira (Bill) Stonestreet in 1924, it later became home to Peter and Joan, and a beloved site for holidays, weddings, tennis matches, cherry picking, and stories about the fridge on the veranda and snakes in the laundry.

The grandchildren describe it best as a place of “baby mice and apple pie,” where each person had a job to do, a biscuit to eat, or a gnome to rearrange in the garden.

🪦 These Houses Had Bones and Souls

What’s amazing is how many of these properties are still in the family. They've had roof replacements, new kitchens, extensions, but in most cases, the original bricks and orchard trees remain.

And where they don’t — the stories do.

💬 Have a photo of one of the old homes? Or a memory of bathtubs, fireplaces, ghostly creaks or farm chores? Send it in — this post could easily become a whole series.

📚 Next up: “Horses Still in the Blood” — Bruce Stonestreet’s memories of the old ways, good dogs, and funny sayings from Grandpa.