What is an estate
An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is an "estate" because the profits from its produce and rents are sufficient to support the household in the house at its center. Thus "the estate" may refer to all other cottages and villages in the same ownership as the mansion itself. An example of such an estate is Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, England.
The "park" is specifically the inner part of an estate that is enclosed by walling, hedges or fencing.
"Estate", with its "stately" connotations, has been a natural candidate for inflationary usage during the 20th century, much as the "landscaping" that can be effected in a front or back yard.
In the US, Long Island and other affluent East Coast enclaves had strong traditions of large agricultural estates attempting to rival those of Europe; however after the 1940s many were lost and today large houses on a few acres are commonly referred to as "estates".
Country house, can I have one?
The country house is generally accepted as a large house or mansion, once in the ownership of an individual who also usually owned another great house in town allowing one to spend time in the country and in the city. Country houses and stately homes are sometimes confused—while a country house is always in the country, a stately home can also be in a town. Apsley House, built for the Duke of Wellington at the corner of Hyde Park ('No. 1, London' it was called), is one example. Other country houses such as Ascott in Buckinghamshire were deliberately designed not to be stately, and to harmonise with the landscape, while some of the great houses such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall were built as "power houses" to impress and dominate the landscape, and were certainly intended to be "stately homes". Today many former "stately homes", while still country houses, are far from stately and most certainly not homes.

