The modern-day beer baron, who is Inch’s cousin, has done a great deal of research into his family’s past and collected many historical artifacts since restarting the family business in 1984.

He said his great-great-grandfather was trying to match waters from Burton on Trent in the middle of England where several successful breweries were then located.

“Analysis concluded the water he was looking for was in the aquifers of Guelph,” Sleeman said.

The family moved to Guelph in 1847 and partnered with the Holliday Brewery before setting up its own in 1851.

An artesian spring at the site of what is today the Manor Adult Entertainment Complex yielded all the water for the family’s Silver Creek Brewery, located across the road on Waterloo Avenue.

The Speed River on the south side of the brewery provided water for cleaning and irrigation. In the winters the river provided ice for the ice houses.

A two-storey stone house was built on the site in 1859.

“He built his brewery and his house 10 feet outside the town line because his taxes were a fraction of what he would pay in the city,” John Sleeman said.

George Sleeman worked at the brewery and worked his way up to partner when he was 24, in 1865. That same year, he bought the home from his parents. He lived in the house with his wife, Sarah Hill, and their children until 1891. A photo from the Sleeman Archives shows the couple and their 11 children standing outside the old house in 1885.

Its location on the southwestern edge of the city made it one of the first homes people saw as they entered Guelph from London, Galt and Berlin, as Kitchener was called at the time.

While George Sleeman was establishing himself as an entrepreneur, he was also making a mark in sports and politics.

He was the first mayor of Guelph after it became a city, in 1880, and was instrumental in bringing hydroelectric power to the municipality and financing a streetcar service.

Sleeman was also a baseball enthusiast and pitched for Guelph’s Maple Leaf Baseball Club when it started in 1863. He went on to become club president by 1874. His activities earned Sleeman an induction into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.

“He was involved in nearly anything and everything,” said Inch.

In the 1890s, Sleeman took his family on a vacation to Chicago for the Columbian Exposition World’s Fair where, according to family folklore, he became inspired by the wonders of modern technology.

“After they came back he had an architect draw up a plan,” Inch said. “Apparently they worked a couple of years carving the limestone for the house.”

Each block was cut and numbered to exact specifications.

“He brought masons from Britain and bought land to quarry the stone,” John Sleeman said.

A section of the mansion resembles the dimensions of the original house and there has been some debate as to whether the old home was incorporated into the final design, but Inch says it wasn’t.

“They built the new house behind the old one and then they just moved from the old to the new when it was ready and demolished the old one,” Inch said. “The foundation from the old house could be seen under the veranda around the new house.”

Tax records from that period show George Sleeman owned properties in nearly every ward in the city, but his “grand residence on Waterloo Avenue” afforded special attention.

He invited the editors of the Guelph Daily Mercury and Advertiser to tour the newly completed home. On Oct. 23, 1891, they published a detailed description of what they saw. Apart from marvelling at the intricate stone and woodwork and the opulence of the more than 50 rooms that included a library, conservatory and billiards room, they were impressed by its modern attributes. Excerpts from the article paint a vivid description:

“All the halls and rooms are supplied with combination gas and electric light fixtures, so that either light can be used. The electric light and gas is supplied by Mr. Sleeman’s own machinery and a novel feature is that all the grates in the house burn gas …

… The kitchens, pantries, laundry and cellar are all adequately equipped with labour-saving appliances, and electric bells and speaking tubes form a quick and easy means of communication through the house …

… His elegant commodious home is largely of Mr. Sleeman’s own creating, however the cost will run over $30,000.”

Sleeman was an avid gardener and the grounds of the estate were immaculately groomed with an orchard containing an assortment of fruit trees and a variety of gardens. There was a fountain, a fish pond and a bowling green and, in a grand display of civic pride, he had the Priory, the first home of Guelph’s city founder John Galt, relocated and partially restored on the grounds.

A popular sight on the property was a walkway constructed, as the story goes, by Sarah Sleeman, from the bottoms of beer bottles from the brewery.

With the passing of time, the massive home grew quiet as the children married and moved away.

“Sarah Sleeman died in 1917,” Inch said. “She had a terminal illness. That was why my grandmother went back there. She nursed her mother in her last days. Then she just stayed on.”

George Sleeman retired in 1905 but his sons continued the family business. It was under their direction that trouble began to brew.

“The temperance movement started to bite during the First World War and there were restrictions on strengths of beer,” Inch said.

They were caught brewing beer with an illegally high percentage of alcohol and supplying it to the U.S. market during Prohibition.

“They were involved in smuggling during the American prohibition as well as the Canadian prohibition,” said Sleeman. He said the family never discussed that and he only recently began to hear the stories.

Sleeman said an elderly man from Minneapolis-St. Paul told a Sleeman Brewery rep that he used to drive Sleeman beer from Guelph to Chicago for Al Capone during Prohibition. Unfortunately, the man died before they could confirm the story.

“Interestingly, there are no written records, for obvious reasons,” Sleeman said.

George Sleeman died on Dec. 16, 1926. The brewing business would be gone seven years later.

John Sleeman has pieced together the history since 1984 when his aunt Florian showed up at his Mississauga home with an old Sleeman beer bottle and a notebook with George Sleeman’s handwritten brewing recipes.

“She told me the story her father, my grandfather, told her,” John Sleeman said. “He said that when the authorities caught the family smuggling in 1933 they were told no one with the last name Sleeman would get a licence to operate a brewery for another 50 years. I’ve done some research and I can’t find a document that says that, but anecdotally it seems to make sense because my aunt waited 51 years to tell me.”

After 1933, the family fortune quickly dwindled. The estate slipped into disrepair. The gardens became overgrown with weeds and the home’s appliances became inoperable and antiquated.

“I was brought to the house in the late ’50s,” Sleeman said. “Large portions were closed off. I was quite young but I remember going around the house and up the turret. It was a beautiful house with beautiful fireplaces. For a little kid growing up in a bungalow in Ottawa this was fairy tale, Disney World stuff.”

In 1957, the property was sold to a local entrepreneur and the last Sleeman residents moved out.

“As I remember, it was a man named Al Watson and his wife that bought it,” Inch said.

Hundreds of Guelph residents toured the house when it was opened to the public during the estate auction, which drew buyers from all over Ontario and the U.S.

Watson paid a reported $21,000 for the house and despite pledging to preserve its architectural integrity, removed the verandas, built a motel addition and began a series of renovations that carried on with each new owner.

Additions were added throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s to accommodate the hotel, banquet hall, restaurant and nightclub operations.

In 1980, the owner at the time, John Mason, successfully applied to change the licensed use of the building and today, the Manor holds the distinction of housing the only adult entertainment club in Guelph.

A frame and cinder block sarcophagus encapsulates nearly all the intricate stonework on the ground-floor exterior. Concrete and asphalt project out from the building in every direction, entombing the once stately gardens and manicured lawns.

Despite the best of intentions, none of the owners since George Sleeman have had the resources to restore it to its original condition, but efforts are underway to protect the building from further decline.

Heritage Guelph is working to have the home declared a heritage site and the application has the support of the present owner, Roger Cohen. The building is even to be opened to the public during Doors Open Guelph in April.

Cohen said when he bought the Manor in 1985, it was in bad shape, with squatters living in parts of the building. He said extensive renovations were needed so it could continue as a business, but most of the work was restricted to additions built after the 1960s.

The only changes he made to the old building were required to bring it up to code for licensing and insurance purposes.

He said he has met with resistance from the community because of the nature of his business, but many are unaware of the efforts he has made to preserve the building.

“The former owners were selling fireplaces and craftwork to pay the taxes,” Cohen said. “I couldn’t afford to maintain the building without running a profitable business like adult entertainment.”

Cohen said profits from the business have allowed him to set up Sue’s Inn on the property, where he provides free temporary shelter to homeless people with drug and alcohol addictions.

John Sleeman said there is no truth to rumours that he offered to buy the property, but he has visited with Cohen and even attempted to locate the legendary tunnels believed to run to different locations from below the estate.

“I have nothing against strip joints. They sell a lot of beer,” Sleeman said. “But I certainly wouldn’t be interested in running it, and I think my wife might have a comment about that, too.”

He supports efforts to protect the home, but to restore the estate to its original condition would be a financial and logistical challenge given that many custom features have been removed.

“It is my ancestral home, so there is some sentimental value, but I try not to get emotional about business decisions, especially ones that cost millions of dollars,” Sleeman said.

He said he believes his great-grandfather’s living legacy is not preserved in the quarried stone of the Manor but in his recipes still used to brew Sleeman beer.

“Restoring the home is not as significant as restoring the brewery he was so proud of and that made all the things he accomplished possible.”

editor@guelphmercury.com