Welcome to HartOaks Place

Welcome to the HartOaks Place family website, where we share our stories, photos, and adventures with you!

HartOaks Place, LLC is a venture our family created to document the developments on our land in Washington County, Texas, where our family and friends have enjoyed country-style recreation for the past century.

Originally, the acreage was part of a large tract of land the Hartstack family acquired after they migrated from Germany to Texas in the early 1900s. Edmund Hartstack and Olga Kieke Hartstack gave this section to their children Anita, Elmer, and Edwin. At first, there was only a small stock pond on the land, but in about 1950, Anita and her husband John Stebner enlarged it and built a tin-roof cabin. They furnished the cabin with a large family table, multiple beds, a wood-burning stove, and an “ice box,” with an outhouse nearby. Perch and catfish were plentiful, and the Stebners, with their child Priscilla, visited the cabin for weekend getaways in the 50s and 60s. The cabin remained virtually unchanged throughout the 70s and 80s, when Priscilla and her husband Gerry would bring children Stacy and Jason to fish, shoot, catch frogs, and reluctantly learn how to use an outhouse. During the 1990s, the use of the cabin declined. Years of overgrowth consumed the cleared acreage, and the cabin began to degrade. Fast forward to the 2000s… Gerry was retired, and he and Priscilla had grandchildren. What a perfect time for a family project! The land transitioned from the Cabin Days to the Trailer Days: A double-wide was planted where the cabin had been, electricity and running water were introduced, and the pond was again revitalized and stocked with largemouth bass. Stacy and her husband John began the cycle again, bringing children Audrey and Evan to visit the country, and it has been a well-loved destination for all of them during these years.

Now, we welcome version 3.0: the House Days. For this new transition, we're building a permanent house to allow the family tradition of escaping to this rural backdrop to continue.