canadadaPHOTOGRAPHY: Holton Fine Furniture

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Monday, December 18, 2023

STONEACRES: Gone, but Not Forgotten

Sorry, I know it's been awhile ... Have spent the part year wrapping up mum and dad's estate (with my brothers) and I have moved to a new home in Eastern Ontario ...

Today, I want to share some parting photos shot during my final year at our childhood family home, along with an article written last year, (never published). It sums-up, to my mind, what Stoneacres was all about, from the distant past to the present day. Our family owned and improved it for 70 years.

'Stoneacres' may be gone, but it will never, ever, be forgotten, by me. I really loved that unique house and property. That one-of-a-kind fine old stone house was made so special by so many, but most importantly, by Mum and Dad's constant care and up-keep. It really was a wonderful place to grow-up ...

I've not been back since I left the area in June. I doubt I'll ever return. That chapter is over. In a few days, I'll be adding a new post that introduces you all to my new home. I was lucky to find it. To my mind, it too is an unsung beauty.

In the meantime, please ENJOY this WRAP-UP of 'Stoneacres', my childhood home -

Stoneacres - with Persian Lilacs in Bloom

STONEACRES: A LOVE STORY - Collaboration by Jeff Mahoney & MLHolton

The house and the grounds it is on have a name, two names actually, which tells you something about it right away (my house, for instance, doesn’t have a name; just a draft).

'Stoneacres' is grand, and its history is deep; pre-war deep - as in pre-War of 1812 deep. Napoleon was an actual emperor, not just a pastry, when it got its first build. Grand and historical, yes, but not pompous, theatrical or affected. It started as a settler homestead in 1810.

House in 1958

Every bit of this now magnificent edifice (interior and exterior) has been defined by the vision of those who have lived and built it over the centuries.

Hard-working hands added a new stone addition in 1850. An overall restoration began in earnest in the 1950s when Margaret Lindsay Holton’s parents bought it.

Her parents gave it the name of 'Stoneacres'. One look at it, you know why. Self-explanatory.

View: Niagara Escarpment & Lake Ontario

A solid, stately, Georgian vision-on-a-hill greets the eye in simple pleasing rhythms of field-stone and glass accented with some of the finest coursed, dressed stone you’ll find.

A “land" mark, yes, but one that rides the hill overlooking the lake almost like a ship rides a wave. Like Noah’s ark, this ship abides while all else around it - symbolized by the traffic whizzing by below - drowns in floods of change.

That’s the stone. The acres - it sits on 10 of them - alludes to the picturesque surroundings.

'Stoneacres'. That’s the one name.

Margaret Lindsay Holton, (she goes by 'Lindsay'), a multi-disciplined Canadian artist, has another - “it's a love story.”

“When mum and dad bought this stone shell of a place in 1953, there was no plumbing or electricity. An out-house out-back and a well in the basement served the old farmer who lived here well enough. It was derelict. Today, the house & property is a monument to the grit, love and determination mum and dad had - to draw-out its potential."


Newly painted walls & Dad's trim

They added their own addition - a 3-bay garage - in the 1970s.

Lindsay's parents also transformed the interior. The existing Georgian centre-hall plan has been brought up to scratch.

They restored the two existing fireplaces ~ and added two more. Uncovered the boarded-up bread oven. Built distinctive shutters for the century-old windows on stone sills (six-over-six wood sash), added solid wood doors with period cast-iron locks, installed electricity, laid down beautiful wide-plank flooring, added 16-inch baseboards, installed period door trim.

Lindsay grew up in this fine old house. She shows me the fine antique four-poster she slept in as a child.

A love story? Yes, it was. Lindsay’s parents met in England during that other war, World War Two. Her father was in the Canadian tank corps. He was billeted to Mary Margaret Lindsay Allan’s parents house in London. Love at first sight, they married on her nineteenth birthday in 1945.

Mary Margaret, (aka 'MM'), came over to Canada by ship, the Aquitania, as a war bride. The newlyweds first lived in downtown Hamilton but they both longed for something rural - and romantic.

While driving by the house, 70 years ago, the century-old lilacs in bloom at the front of the house sealed the deal.

Persian Lilacs at the Front

Building up a family, along with the house, occupied so much of their lives over the decades, Lindsay thinks of the house as a kind of living embodiment of who they were. They were, says Lindsay, "hard-working idealists" - "true classics of that Great Generation.”

“And they both left 'feet first',” she says with a smile. Both died peacefully in Stoneacres, leaving it for good when their coffins were carried out. Her father went in 2002 in his 79th year. MM just this past February, age 96.

Since MM's passing, Lindsay has been 'sorting' through their long family life there. Memorabilia, books, papers, records, the furniture. There is so much. The place, as Lindsay walks me through it, is rife with stunning antiques. A Queen Anne sideboard, an earlier Tudor chest, Chippendale side chairs, Georgian end-tables, Williamsburg chandeliers. Much more. There are studded brass chests from Africa and a leather-wrapped tribal sword from the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Sorting, Packing, Sorting, Packing ...

Lindsay’s mother, it turns out, spent her early years in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. MM's father was a colonial administrator involved in the transfer of German East Africa to British East African rule. Those colonial facts shimmer in the artefacts, startling remnants of a by-gone era. “Mum did speak some Swahili,” Lindsay adds.

MM's family returned to England pre-WW2.

Lindsay’s father was a gifted cabinetmaker. Among her parents' effects, Lindsay found an old leather-bound Rudyard Kipling anthology awarded to him when he was 17 - in 1939 - by the head-master of his school for 'Excellence in Woodworking'.

Fireplace built & trimmed-out by Holton

He, in time, ran his own fine furniture-making business so successfully from the basement of 'Stoneacres' he had to open a larger shop in Hamilton in the 1980s.

Many may still remember it: Holton Fine Furniture on Canada Street.

There are many examples of his work in the house today, including gorgeously turned mahogany plant stands, tables and chairs ...

Let’s go outside.

Once fallow and denuded when the Holtons arrived, there are now sweeping gardens that offer a painting-like vista. A great thickness of trees dominate the rippling lawns. Expressive weeping willows loom over the wild duck pond at the back.

The pond is a brilliant mint green in the summer months and, Lindsay assures me, "it's a perfect skate in winter."

It's quite the place. A lovers dream made real.

Indeed, a 'love story': Stoneacres.