St Isidore's

St Isidore's is a heritage-listed homestead at 40 Post Office Road, Mapleton, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from c. 1900 to c. 1913 by James Blair Cramb. It is also known as Mapleton Homestead, Seaview House, and St Isidore's Farm College. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 28 July 2000.

This substantial, high-set timber residence was erected in the early 1900s in at least two stages, for pioneer Mapleton orchardist William James Smith and his family, at their Seaview Orchard at the top of the Blackall Range. In August 1923 the well-known Seaview Orchard was acquired by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, the Rev. James Duhig, who hoped to develop it as St Isidore's Farm College. Although this and adjoining farms remained the property of the Church until the early 1950s, the college was never established.

WJ Smith and his brother Thomas David were the first to take up land in the Mapleton district, and had an important association with fruit-growing in Southeast Queensland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They had arrived in Queensland from England in 1880 with their parents, who established banana and strawberry farm at Redland Bay. In 1889 WJ and TD Smith, both in their early twenties, explored the Mapleton district (then unnamed) on the Blackall Range, in search of land suitable for banana growing. Since 1860 the Range had been logged for its extensive cedar, beech and pine resources, but difficulty of access had deterred farming settlement. In 1889 the North Coast railway line was completed as far as Caboolture, and a coach ran to Noosa, but the only way into the Blackall Range was by foot.

The Smith brothers each selected land at the eastern edge of the range, near later Mapleton Falls, but WJ Smith relinquished his claim when he realised the block selected was not the land he anticipated. In 1890 they began clearing Thomas' selection, selling the red cedar to a logging company, and erecting a slab house. Their sister Amy came from Redland Bay to housekeep for them. By 1891 they had established a pasture paddock and had planted bananas (the butts obtained from Redland Bay) and subsistence crops. They also took contracts to open a road into the district – a track suitable for pack horses, opened in 1891.

In the early 1890s other settlers took up land in the area. Bananas were grown initially, but even with the opening of the railway to Nambour in 1890, low prices and the expense and difficulty encountered in transporting produce down the range produced small returns. By 1892, the Smith brothers were pioneering the cultivation of citrus at Mapleton. Strawberries were planted between the citrus seedlings, and these proved profitable as an interim crop.

In September 1891 WJ Smith married Sarah Anne Imogene (Annie) Collins, whose family were Redland Bay settlers, and the couple returned to the Blackall Range. In mid-1892 Smith selected the property which he developed as Seaview Orchard (portion 185v, parish of Maroochy, comprising just under 160 acres of dense vine scrub). About the same time David J Williams, who married Amy Smith in 1892, selected a block adjacent to WJ Smith.

For a brief period the district was known as Luton Vale, after a postal receiving office opened at EH Biggs' Lutonvale Orchard in January 1893. Later, at a public meeting held in March 1894, Mapleton was chosen as the formal name for the settlement, at WJ Smith's suggestion.

During the 1890s, most of the Mapleton settlers resided in slab huts while they established their farms and orchards. DJ Williams reputedly was the first to erect a pit-sawn timber house, in 1895. By August 1897, when WJ Smith was applying for a title to his selection, the family was still residing in a 22-by-18-foot (6.7 m × 5.5 m), 4-roomed split timber dwelling with a shingled roof, valued at £20. They had about 8 acres of their 160 acres cleared and planted with fruit trees, 2 acres partly cleared and under grass, and 6 acres felled. Having fulfilled the conditions of selection, title was issued to WJ Smith in January 1898.