The Hatley Park estate was so named in 1889 when the land was purchased by Roland Stuart and Charles St. Aubyn Pearse. The name derives from the ancestral home of the Pearse family in England. Pearse died in 1901 and Stuart had a number of other business partners and tenant farmers who helped manage the estate.
A large fire destroyed the property in 1905 and shortly after, Roland Stuart put the estate up for sale.