Although from the 1870s used principally to fatten cattle from the Wiehnolt family's western Queensland properties, Fassifern was renowned also for its Clydesdale horse stud.

In late 1841/early 1842 John Cameron occupied about 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) here centred on the junction of Warrill and Reynolds creeks and which he named Fassifern.

[1] In the mid-nineteenth century four young Wienholt brothers, sons of a wealthy London merchant, arrived in Australia: Arnold c. 1847, Edward and Arthur in 1853, and Daniel c. 1854.

In 1849, backed by family money, Arnold Wienholt purchased the lease to Strathmillar run (which he renamed Maryvale) on the Darling Downs.

In 1853 Edward and Arthur Wienholt acquired Moogerah Station south-west of Fassifern, on the eastern side of the Dividing Range from Arnold's Maryvale run.

The two Wienholt runs were linked via the new road over Spicer's Peak that the Downs squatters had constructed following Henry Alphen's "discovery" of a gap in the Main Range in 1847.

[1] In 1859 Edward relinquished his interest in Fassifern and entered into partnership with William Kent in Rosalie Plains run on the Darling Downs.

About this time, or possibly as early as 1858, Kent and Edward Wienholt also leased Jondaryan station from Robert Tooth, and in February 1863 purchased both the leasehold and the freehold.

In 1864 Hardie and Wienholt were declared insolvent, with the liquidation of their assets resulting in Fassifern Station (including about 1,300 acres (530 ha) of freehold) being acquired by their mortgagees, the Bank of Australasia.

Early in 1873 the Bank transferred the lease of the consolidated Fassifern run to William, John, Edward, Arnold and Arthur Wienholt.

[1] Photographs of Fassifern Homestead dated c. 1899 and c. 1903 indicate that by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the residence had been renovated but the essential form had been retained.

The southern end of the roof of the north-south wing had been truncated as a half-hip, and a small covered porch had been created centrally in this elevation.

All the present stairs to the verandahs were extant by this period, as were the curved window hoods with the decorative timber infill to the sides, over the double-hung sashes.

By this period the huge freeholds that pastoralists such as the Wienholts had amassed under earlier selection Acts (via various "peacocking" and "dummying" practices), and which tied up much valuable agricultural land, were proving expensive to sustain.

[3] Like Maryvale, for many years Fassifern had been used for fattening cattle from the Wienholt family's western stations, and was noted for its Clydesdale horse stud.

Finally, in December 1908 a deputation of MLAs in support of the Fassifern repurchase approached the Minister for Lands (Digby Denham), but in January 1909 the Queensland government wrote to the Wienholt Estates Company firmly rejecting the offer.

[1] In 1916 the homestead, located on Reynolds Creek about 4 miles (6.4 km) from Engelsburg (later Kalbar), was described as having "replaced the original house some years ago" and as "a comfortable wooden building, with water and gas laid on.

Until 2014, the house, on a substantially reduced parcel of land of just over 6,000 sq.m, remained the property of his widow, Joie Elwyn Dwyer (a former long-term Boonah Shire Councillor).

To the south-east the escarpment of Mount French and the volcanic landscape of the northern section of the Moogerah Peaks National Park overlook the site.

[1] Built to an L-shaped plan the outer faces of which are oriented to the north and east, Fassifern Homestead has a bungalow-style hipped roof clad in corrugated iron.

Timber-framed, with exterior walls clad variously with two widths of chamferboard and weatherboards, the house is raised off the gently sloping ground on ant-capped timber stumps.

[1] The earliest discernible plan of the homestead provided for two perpendicular wings of single rooms bordered by verandahs approximately two and a half metres wide.

The verandah on the western side of the southern projection was enclosed; making what is now a laundry and bathroom that are separated from the original outer face of the house by a narrow corridor less than a metre wide.

Over the remaining double-hung sashes are a number of decorative curved hoods, the sides of which are formed by timber boards with rounded ends pierced with small holes.

The wall and ceiling linings are largely fibrous cement sheeting in the private and utilitarian rooms, with an area of more recent vertical timber tongue-in-groove boarding to the west-facing laundry and bathroom.

On the northern edge of the site, toward the western corner of the block, is a Bunya pine (Araucaria bidwillii), which is one of three visible in a number of photographs dating from the late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries.

The single gate that opens through the eastern boundary fence sits near a large stand of mature bougainvillea, which is on an adjoining allotment.

The 1846 grave of Margaret Coulson, marked with an engraved headstone, is located approximately 15 metres (49 ft) to the south of the single gate that opens through the southern boundary fence, again on a separate allotment to the homestead block.

As the principal residence on an extensive freehold estate, Fassifern Homestead has a special association with the Wienholt family's consolidation of their wealth in Queensland.