In 1852, Frederic Street took up a lease on the Baranduda Station, shortly after gold had been discovered. He built the first homestead at the junction of the Kiewa River and Yackandandah Creek, not far from the present homestead. Frederic supplied meat and milk to the thousands of Beechworth and Yackandandah miners. Gold mining continued until the outbreak of The Great War. Remants of the dredge remain just below the present homestead near the Yackandandah Creek which was abandoned in 1914 when most of the workers joined the army.

Frederic’s youngest son, Philemon, inherited the homestead upon his father’s death in 1880. He built a new brick homestead to replace the first.