graystone

Noun

graystone (countable and uncountable, plural graystones)

1. (uncountable) A type of gray volcanic rock, typically containing feldspar and iron.
2. (attributive, uncountable) Any type of gray stone, such as limestone, used in building.
   • I certainly was not prepared for the cosy nestling valleys that snuggled against the shoulders of the hills; a land where the graystone cottages and farmsteads still prevailed, but where they had taken on something of the softness of their kind in Gloucester and the Cotswolds, and seemed almost...1949 January and February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in Railway Magazine, page 12
   • Founded almost 50 years ago, it's an imposing graystone structure (formerly a park district office).2009 January 4, “Letters: Mr. Obama’s Neighborhood”, in New York Times
3. (broadly, countable) A building of this kind.
   • Because graystones were more expensive to build than frame buildings and had a more substantial look and feel, they were the choice of the middle and upper classes.2017, Terry Moor, Reinventing an Urban Vernacular