History of the Cask Villa in Vermilion, Ohio

The shore and islands of Lake Erie were known and celebrated as one of the great wine-producing areas in the United States until 1920, when Prohibition became the law of the land. Dozens of brewers, distillers and winemakers closed down, including Schuster’s, a winery in Cleveland. An enterprising man named William J. O’Neill bought 36 of the winery’s 6,000-gallon barrels at a cost of $1,200 each. He had plans for them.

O’Neill owned a piece of property in Vermilion — and took the wine barrels there, where he had a total of 22 reconditioned for use, adding doors and windows and wiring them for electricity.

The result was Cask Villa, a set of summer cottages on the lakefront. The cabins had all the comforts of a home away from home, including an icebox, stove and bathroom. And they were accessible as well, just off Stop 133 on the Lake Shore Electric Railway, an interurban that started at Public Square in Cleveland and went all the way to Toledo, Ohio. “The casks, as O’Neill has set them up, are every bit as roomy as the average summer bungalow,” The Plain Dealer wrote in 1925, the year before Cask Villa opened.

O’Neill died in 1940, but the casks lived on, becoming a curiosity nationwide. Photos were distributed by wire services to newspapers throughout the country, and Cask Villa even made an appearance in “Strange as It May Seem,” a syndicated illustrated feature.

Eventually, Lake Road got bypassed by larger, newer high-speed highways, and many of the tourist destinations on it declined. Cask Villa remained a popular summer spot through the 1970s, but the casks were long gone, replaced by cottages with the latest creature comforts.

While O’Neill’s former property has hung onto the Cask Villa name all these years, it is now a condominium complex.

Stay on top of everything Lake Erie has to offer — all year long — by subscribing to our free The Splash newsletter. It’s your guide to the best food, drinks, parks, beaches, shopping, festivals, music and more.