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.

Spring Thaw - At the Pond

--- Additional photos: Copyright MLHolton.

Back Garden PREPPED for the SALE

Back Hall - Trimmed & Painted

Dad's version of Sir Edwin Luyten's Garden Bench

Had to start camping out as furniture was distributed or sold ...

A late spring storm!

View from Upstairs to the Pond

View from the Well to the Pond. Mum & I put up the last martin-house ..

My Stargazer Garden Bench - ready for storage, and now at my NEW PLACE ...

Porch window. During the summer, mum would put her baby carriage out there ...

My childhood bedroom - empty. (Loved that view from my room ...)

Final snow before sale of Stoneacres

Finishing-up paperwork by the kitchen fire.

Last supper in the diningroom with an old, dear friend.

 

 

 

Mum & Dad's Bedroom - empty.

Heirloom - sold ...

Front Steps - Built by Dad

.... sunlight and shadows - everywhere ...

Full Moon over the House - (Photo taken from the back lawn.)

Front Door

Final Christmas Tree at Stoneacres - With mum. 

 

___

Mum and Dad - in the Garden at Stoneacres

 

December Letter, 2022

 

Good afternoon all - Checking in again, finally.

First up, an apology. I have not had much desire or interest in creating 'new work' over the past nine months since mum died. To be sure there's been grief, but also, settling her - and the residuals of dad's estate - has been very time consuming. 

Not only is my parents beautiful centuries-old farmhouse for sale now, but we (my brothers and me) have had to empty it. After 70 years of accumulation and family living, that's no easy task!

Stoneacres, the well-known house and property, has been chock-a-block with fascinating remnants of the bygone decades. Not only did we jettison dad's 40-year old electric jig-saw (made in Guelph, Ontario), but we've tossed toys, school clothing and home-making artifacts from our youth. We've also chucked numerous domestic devices mum accrued over the years, (like 3 ironing boards in various states of collapse - as well as metallic sock and kid-glove stretchers!)

In truth, it's been a somewhat painful process. Sure, those items are of little use or interest today. However, they do bring back loads of memories of a somewhat blissful and carefree childhood ... 

We did have a happy home as youngsters.

I was looking through mum's cookbook cupboard the other day. Nestled above the stove, those pine shelves hold an amazing compendium of books, magazine and articles she saved. They succinctly document her transformation from a dutiful, meticulous and ambitious 'housewife' to an independent and 'liberated' female who was finally 'released' from kitchen drudgery by the invention of the dishwasher and microwave oven. That's not to say, mum was a 'woman's liber'. She wasn't. But, inherent in the cultural evolution of the 60s, 70s and 80s, she went through her own feminine evolution. Over time, she became separated from the repetitive and dull tasks that had previously defined her principal 'role' within our family as 'the cook'.

When first married, mum brought the best of continental training to her kitchen. She'd been trained as a teen in the 'Domestic Sciences' at the Atholl Crescent School in Edinburgh, Scotland. (She won Honours in baking, linen repair and monogram stitching ...) Her first hand-written recipe book in the cupboard meticulously catalogued the early dinners she prepared for her new husband and herself as a newly-arrived war-bride to Canada. Entertaining 8 to 12 friends over busy social weekends was not uncommon. Her handwriting at that time was precise, neat and small. There's also a curious self-congratulatory tone in those early written recipes. Mum loved entertaining with semi-exotic souffles, spiced beef and 'cocktails'. After five years of war-rationing and deprivation, they were living up the good life in their mid-to-late 20s - and were proud of it. She'd write, "Very Good!!"

By the 1960s, after her third child, mum's recipe books transformed into a filing card system with quick and easy to prepare healthy meals for us all. Porridge recipes, chicken pot pies and hearty lamb stews. Her handwriting evolved too. It was looser, freer, more open - yet decidedly firmer and more mature. The entertaining novelty had worn off. She knew what she was doing and she just efficiently recorded what worked and what didn't.

Claw bathtub abandoned in orchard circa 1980s

 Overall, Mum was a very good cook. 

 I especially remember her delectable soups. She made a variety of delicious cold soups - from an exotic tomato-sipper consomme to a garden-grown cold and creamy asparagus. 

She worked hard in the kitchen - and she fed us all very well. 

When dad died, she began to lose interest in cooking. The last recorded recipe - in her by now strong and definitive hand - was from 2001: the year he died. It was for special Christmas cheese cookies she knew he liked. I could find nothing else - no notes, no cards, no clippings of any food that interested her after that. If family were visiting, she'd buy prepared frozen casseroles and toss a salad. Otherwise, she preferred a light diet of eggs cooked in a variety of different ways, raw vegetables, periodic fillets of fish and her favourite dessert, rice pudding with dollop of Lyle's Golden Syrup. And tea, always lots and lots of tea ...

... I was going to add more photos to this post, but haven't transferred over the images yet. I was just conscious I hadn't written in a while, and I wanted to let you all know, I've not forgotten or given up. I've just been very, very busy - sorting, packing & sorting through the rich legacy mum & dad left us. 

When I get the photos done, I'll load them in. Until then - 

Season's Very Best to You All. - Eat, Drink & Be Merry!

with nothing but Good Cheer for the New Year!

- mlh -