Cask Villa in Vermilion

During the 1920s, William J. O’Neill purchased over twenty wine casks from a wine wholesaler in Ohio. The casks were made from solid oak, and measured nine feet in length and twelve feet in diameter. Mr. O’Neill hired carpenters to put windows and a door in each wine cask, and to level the bottoms. Foundations were placed under each large barrel, and each was equipped with electricity, a stove and even a bathtub. The casks were painted, and a screened in porch attached to the front of the structures. Soon the “Cask Camp” served as a place for vacationing motorists to stop and spend the night along the old lake road between Vermilion and Sandusky.  Eventually the unique group of cottages became known as “Cask Villa.”

The picture above is from the Karl Kurtz Estate. On the back of the picture is the “Ohio’s Lake Erie Vacationland” stamp, once a familiar sight to most local residents.

An article in the April 26, 1951 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News stated that cottages at Cask Villa could be rented for $25 to $35 a week. These cottages were available for rent up to the 1960s. By 1978 the Cask Villa Condominiums had been built on a site near the former Cask Villa cottages.