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The Fairmeade Farm property is treasured for its association with the early farming community and agricultural development of Langley. Originally first surveyed as the farmstead of Jacob and Jessie Haldi.

Colonial settlement beyond the Hudson Bay Company’s Fort Langley began on the fertile land of the area in the 1860s and 1870s. Hudson Bay Company employees farmed the land growing produce that was sold as far away as Alaska.

In 1873, Langley was incorporated as a municipality even though at the time there were less than one hundred settlers in the area. The land was surveyed and offered for pre-emption (un-surveyed land) by the provincial government in 160-acre parcels described as quarter sections. The Fairmeade quarter section was pre-emptied (occupied and improved prior to survey) by Theodore Schintz in 1883 along with the additional quarter section to the east.

Swiss-born Jacob Haldi (1845-1930) first bought land in Langley in 1884, acquiring three quarter sections adjacent to what was to become Fairmeade Farm. In 1891, he purchased this property, combining it with the quarter section to the south. From the mid-1890s, he and his wife Jessie Beller Haldi (1854-1927) farmed here. In 1901, they established a butcher store in Fort Langley and in 1908, thanks to a substantial inheritance from Jessie Haldi’s father of Detroit, they built a large home beside the store. Jacob Haldi continued farming for the remainder of his life, continuing to own this property as well as other land nearby. At his death, he left a bequest of $15,000 to the province to build a bridge across Bedford Channel to Brae Island (now part of MacMillan Island) where he also owned property. The first Jacob Haldi Bridge was built in the early 1930s and with the addition of a ferry service provided the first crossing of the Fraser River for Langley.

The 1930s and 40s saw an influx of British investors in western Canada, including the ill fated plans for ‘gentleman’s estates’ in the Guinness family owned British properties as well as several ‘country estates and showfarns’ in the Fraser Valley, most notably Brooksdale in Surrey, designed by prominent Vancouver architects, Lort and Lort.

Fairmeade remains as a 157-acre rural property located on the east side of 232 Street and north of 64 Avenue in the Township of Langley, 5.5 km south of Fort Langley. The Salmon River flows through the north and east part of the site in a natural setting of trees and native vegetation while the majority of the property is maintained as agricultural land. The 1941 principal residence, ‘Finality Lodge’ (photo) sits on the bluff above the river and meadow, overlooking the swimming pool (photo)and tennis court of similar era.

A long driveway lined with mature poplar trees planted in 1940 (photo) leads to a turnaround loop with a further extension to the main residence. There are three additional modest workers’ residences dating from the 1920s and 1940s, and a pre-1940 farm equipment shed as well as other agricultural buildings constructed from the 1940s onwards, clustered to the north west of the main residence beside the driveway and around fenced paddocks.

The property is a well-preserved example of a ‘show farm’, developed in the 1940s by the Glaspie family, representing an era of investment by prominent BC families in stock breeding and farm estates in the Fraser Valley. The Depression years of the 1930s had left farm property prices at a low ebb and many farmers struggling to pay property taxes were forced to sell so it was an attractive time for affluent Vancouver residents with little or no farming experience to purchase a property. The “lure of the land” intensified with the outbreak of World War II and an interest to contribute to production and stock.

Elmer (owner of Glaspie Lumber Company) and Poppy Glaspie purchased the main part of the Haldi’s Fairmeade Farm in 1940 as a recreational property for themselves and their two young children and to create a ‘show farm’, retaining their primary residence in the First Shaughnessy neighbourhood of Vancouver. Elmer Glaspie (1888-1959) was a successful lumber company owner and with his wife Poppy Glaspie (1912-1974) they were prominent in Vancouver society. The Glaspies further cleared the fields and meadows, added staff cottages as well as barns, stables and other buildings.

The family had a new house built in 1941 (taking only three months, in war time) and added a swimming pool and tennis court. They established a very successful herd of over 200 Jersey cattle. By 1946, the 21 head ‘show herd’ were winning prizes in the USA and Canada and Fairmeade Farms Ltd., with Poppy Glaspie as president, and expanded to 350 acres. The herd was dispersed in the mid-1950s but the farm continued with some horses, cattle and crops. The Glaspie family’s ownership continued into the 21st century.

The Salmon River, one of the few open running rivers, that flows through the property is a productive river system within a vulnerable watershed. A tributary of the Fraser River, the Salmon River is part of the ecosystem of salmon and other resources valued by the Sto:lo Indigenous communities for millennia. Fishing and berry picking also provided important resources for early settlers in the area and later, with the completion of the BCER Fraser Valley line in 1910, recreational opportunities for visitors from urban communities.

Today plans for the revitalization of Fairmeade Farm to create the Fairmeade Estate will build upon the high standards of premiere country life welcoming visitors to experience the value of sustainable food production. This will include a collection of ‘farmlets’ providing small plot farms with residences, open door farm experiences for families as well as knowledge exchange and the establishment of a foremost country wedding and event venue supported by locally sourced farm to table products and premiere class artisan winery.

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