STAMFORD -- A stroll down Sweet Briar Road offers views of a picture book neighborhood with people walking dogs and a mailman on his daily route. It would have been a completely different picture a century ago, when it was a 40-acre stretch of land with a stucco and stone house in the middle and a carriage house and stables nearby.

"We just celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the house," said Brenda Lydecker, who lives at 33 Sweet Briar Road with her husband, Gerrit. "It's been the most fun house. We've raised our five children here and had weddings, birthdays and parties here."

While the 12-room house at 33 Sweet Briar was built in 1910, its carriage house -- still at 64 Sweet Briar Road -- was one of the first homes in the city.

Nathan Lounsbury, a Revolutionary War soldier, built the house in about 1780 at a Newfield Avenue location. The house was sold to Benjamin Scofield in 1788 and stayed in his family until 1909. It was then sold to Mary O'Flyn, believed to be a mistress of the last Scofield to own the property.

The house was moved to 64 Sweet Briar -- about 800 feet to the east -- in about 1910. After moving the house, O'Flyn built the large stucco house at 33 Sweet Briar. The Lounsbury house was then covered in stucco to match the new house and a barn was attached.

Eugene A. Sichel owned the property in 1918. Sichel worked in New York City and lived on the estate with his family for several years. It was sold to Moe Tunick in 1964 and subdivided and developed into single-family houses.

Gerrit recalled that a man came to the door soon after they bought the house in 1974 and said his mother once worked for the Sichel family and they lived in the former carriage house. The man gave the Lydeckers vintage photos of the house and property.

The two-story Colonial currently has six bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, five fireplaces, and is set on 1.78 acres of land. It originally had nine bedrooms, but the Lydeckers converted three small rooms for the servant's quarters into one large room. They also expanded the home's kitchen, enclosed two porches and built a patio, but its unique structure and charm carry on.

"There were 11 doors to the outside when we first moved in," Gerrit said, adding that some have been closed off or aren't being used.

The house has a large modern kitchen with an island in the center, a formal dining room, a formal living room and a family room with a giant stone fireplace that runs upstairs and outside to the chimney. It's furnished with beautiful antiques, paintings and furniture.

Brenda said much of the house is solid stone and called it "a great piece of masonry." She said it's similar to Lasata, the East Hampton home where Jackie Kennedy spent her summers as a child, but isn't sure if it was designed by the same architect.

"I think the house is terrifically adaptable," she said. "It has gone from being dark and cavernous when we moved in to being light and sunny."

That's mostly because they added what Gerrit calls, "his and hers sunrooms" to the east side of the house. One of the rooms opens to a patio overlooking a garden. In the back, the property has its own tennis courts, where Gerrit said he plays about once a week.

On the west side of the house, which was once the front, there is an overhang that Gerrit refers to as a porte-cochere, a feature added to many 18th and 19th century mansions. "The horse and carriage would pull up under there and you would get out," he said.

The estate was originally an orchard or fruit farm, according to the deed of 1760. In the early 1900s, the estate had large gardens and a chauffeur and three gardeners lived in the carriage house.

A life-sized painting of Gerrit's grandfather hangs in the stairwell and numerous family photos line the walls of a room behind the stairs.

"It's part of our family history," Brenda said. "The house is like part of the family. It's been a happy gathering place."