Seagram Cultural Heritage Landscape

Some of the Attawandron or Neutral People were absorbed into the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Following this, the land became part of the Dish with One Spoon Wampum between the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe Nations. A wampum is an agreement represented in the form of beads. These beads use images or symbols to represent the agreement, in this case a dish and spoon. These symbols signified a shared and respectful care for the land where each would only take what was needed. Listen to Richard Hill, knowledge keeper from the Six Nations of the Grand River, share more about the wampum.

Following the American Revolutionary War, the Haudenosaunee were granted six miles of land on either side of the Grand River from its month to it source. With the division between Great Britain and United States, the Haudenosaunee were forced to split their territory and move further into Upper Canada, as it was known at that time. Despite having title to the land, a European way of understanding land, new settlers began encroaching on the six miles of the Grand River. Through a series of events, a group of Mennonite settlers acquired their land under the name The German Company. This marked a change with the introduction of European presence on the land.

The Joseph Seagram Flour Mill and Distillery Company was owned and operated by a second-generation British immigrant, Joseph Emm Seagram. Young Seagram was an ambitious and innovative person. Under his leadership, he restructured the business focusing solely on distilling whisky. He skilfully began combining or "blending" different types of grains to create complex flavours for whisky. These new rich flavours produced in Waterloo gained worldwide attention, creating a demand for the young distiller’s products.

When Joseph invited his sons Edward F., Norman, and Thomas W. to join him in the family business, a new company name was in order. In 1911, the company was incorporated as Joseph E. Seagram and Sons. These young entrepreneurs would eventually take over the family business. As sales boomed the small Seagram distillery grew, adding property to the landscape. Signature brands such as Seagram’s 83, White Wheat, and V.O., bearing Waterloo Ontario on their labels, placed this small community into the global marketplace. Following Joseph’s death in 1919, his sons took over, but the business would suffer badly with wartime restrictions and U.S. prohibition. In 1928, the Seagram sons made the decision to take the Waterloo distillery public.

Samuel Bronfman, a Jewish immigrant and distiller, had unsuccessfully competed in the distilled spirit space with Seagram. His fledgling distilleries out west and in Quebec were no match for the mighty Seagram brand. However, he persevered and negotiated the purchase Bronfman wisely kept the Seagram name because of its existing global recognition for quality and good taste. Bronfman worked hard at acquiring other smaller family owned distilleries around the world. In 1939, he developed the company’s keystone brand Crown Royal, to be distilled at the Waterloo plant. A distillery that had seen many successes was in danger of being lost in 1953 when Bronfman made the decision to close the Waterloo plant. He reconsidered his plans after visiting the plant, recognizing that the Waterloo plant was indeed a jewel. 

Samuel Bronfman's beloved historic Waterloo plant was a going concern in the 1970s. Leadership had passed to his two sons Edgar and Charles in 1971. Shortly after Sam died, the company name was changed to Seagram Company Limited. In the 1980s, the unthinkable happened when the international whisky market collapsed, forcing the brothers to consolidate operations. The Waterloo plant was in need of repairs and upgrades, with limited land to expand. Due to many factors, a decision was made in 1992 to close the Waterloo distillery. As you explore the Erb, Caroline, and Father David Bauer Street landscape, you can still catch glimpses of our proud distilling past. Some of the buildings have been repurposed, preserving our architectural and cultural history. This landscape continues to inspire and change with Waterloo.

Barrel Warehouses #11 and #12 were built as part of a major expansion for the Waterloo plant, at a cost of $1,000,000. The company made clear its steadfast commitment to Waterloo, as it celebrated 100 years in business. Additional offsite storage was built in Breslau on a farm named Hopewell, yet another property owned by Distillers Corporation - Seagram Limited. It seemed the Seagram distillery would always be part of Waterloo fabric.

As the distillery expanded in the 1950s, a larger company-wide safety plan began to take shape. In the early 1940s, Waterloo plant workers had unionized to form Local 48 of the Distillery Rectifying and Wine Workers’ International Union of America. Under the new union, working conditions greatly changed. In the 1940s, Seagram employee Bert Theil earned 95 cents an hour, and wore his regular clothes to work each day. By the 1960s, his wage had increased considerably, and he and his fellow co-workers were wearing company uniforms, safety shoes and safety glasses. The distillery launched in-house campaigns such as “Safety is the only REAL wage guarantee”.  A safety committee was formed to educate workers and prevent hazards. Importance was placed on the need for safety and injury prevention practices at the distillery and in the newly constructed warehouses.

Today, the Barrel Warehouse Park has replaced Barrel Warehouses #11 and #12. The name references the land's previous life and use. While you enjoy the park, you might notice a few of the features planned by the landscape architect, Janet Rosenburg and Associates. The northern edge of the park is lined with rows of tall grasses referencing the farmer’s fields, which supplied the grains essential for making the whisky. The park’s southern edge is a public art displays of distillery equipment including column stills, tall metal pipes used for collecting the alcohol.

Working in the warehouse was a tough job. Four to six men were needed to move the carefully inventoried whisky barrels around. This building had a manpowered hoist at the top, making the movement of these 500 lbs (227kg) barrels much easier. With two men on each floor, they pulled the rope and tackle together to move barrels between the floors. This hoist was very helpful in preventing back injuries. Before moving a barrel, workers opened nearby windows to provide light and air circulation. The vapours from the ageing alcohol were quite strong. A wooden mallet was used to secure the bung (circular wooden stopper on the side of a barrel) before handling the barrel. On an average day, the crew moved 300 barrels. Donald Oberholzer remembers well how hard this job was. He recalls, “The work was heavy, but it was low pressure and if you finished early, you could play cards!”

When the Seagram distillery closed in 1992, the warehouses were cleared of their inventory and left sitting empty. In 1998, Terra View Homes and Kiwi Newton Construction joined to create the Barrel Works Group Ltd. They re-envisioned the warehouses as condominium buildings, a new place for people to call home. The community was thrilled by this new venture and by January of 1999, phase one was 70% sold. Waterloo residents got their first look at this new vision later in April when the first model suite was completed. After much work, residents began to move into the newly transformed building in the fall of 1999. The project cost 24 million dollars and took two and a half years to complete.

Find out what living in this building is like today from residents Adam, Johanna, and Dorian.

For many workers, the Seagram distillery was a life-long, family affair. This in part was because the distillery paid its employees well for their work.  Bert Theil, his uncles, brothers, and even his father all worked at the distillery at various times. For others, the distillery was a job for life, even for women. Frieda Eichholz, who grew up in Waterloo, began working at the distillery after her sister encouraged her to apply. This started a 49 year career for Frieda in the bottle department where she rose to the position of forelady. Frieda and Bert are two of the many employees who spent their working careers at the Seagram distillery.

The old barrel warehouse found a new life in the late 1990s when the Barrel Works Group, a developer of luxury loft condominiums, revived it. These two-storey units had multiple layout options ranging from 935 square feet (87 square meters) to 2,500 square feet (232 square meters). In order to accommodate this new use, an exterior wall was removed from the building and later rebuilt with the original bricks. The project also made use of the wooden barrel racking system by turning the red oak beams into doors, trim, railings, stairs and wall panelling. The re-purposing of bricks and wood was great for both the project and for the environment.

When the Seagram plant closed in 1992, people began to look at other ways to use the former distillery site. In the late 1990s, developer Peter Degroot purchased this land along with a few other former Seagram properties. Degroot saw the potential for the space. Instead of building a typical commercial building, he chose to pay respect to the industrial history of this space by adding a Stillhouse inspired structure.

Degroot reproduced the building’s Victorian style exterior by mimicking the former Seagram Stillhouse. He stated, “The philosophy is to create a unique building that adds to the historic well-being of Waterloo… rather than the typical commercial building.” The similarities between the original Stillhouse as seen from Erb Street and this replica building include: dormer windows, the upper windows along the roofline, the tall front tower, and the cupola. Take a closer look at the original Stillhouse picture and compare it to the building at 7 Father David Bauer Drive. Can you spot the similarities?

This one-storey building erected in 1858 was part of an expansion to the Union Foundry. The foundry began in the building next door; the expansion allowed them to produce farming tools. Eventually, Union Foundry merged with Waterloo Manufacturing and relocated to King Street. Joseph Emm Seagram acquired this building in 1890. Seagram used the building as a horse stable and later it served as a machine shop and storage facility for the distillery.

Serving as the machine shop by the 1940s, the machine shop crew was responsible for keeping the distillery running. They repaired machinery parts and made replacement pieces to prevent lengthy breakdowns that could disrupt production on the line. This crew was divided into two divisions; one group focusing on the bottling lines, while the other group worked on general maintenance. The bottling crew always had someone on “line patrol”, ready to fix issues as they arose. A shutdown of the bottling line meant huge losses for the company. Maintenance and repairs to the stills, pumps and pipes were all part of a day's work. By the1960s, employees doing this work were required to be certified industrial mechanics or millwrights.

After the Seagram plant closed in 1992, this building sat empty. Property owner Peter Degroot saw the beauty in the building and, in 1999, collaborated with John Creny to create a unique Mediterranean restaurant. The next era for the building was about to begin. The Solé restaurant opened with a focus on quality ingredients, and a distinctive name chosen to honour the source of these ingredients. Listen to John Creny as he shares his story of how this 24 year old restaurant came to be.

In January 2024, the Waterloo Region Record announced that John Cerny sold Solé to Kitchener's Charcoal Group of Restaurants. Solé restaurant was owned and operated by the Cerny Hospitality Group for 24 years. The restaurant will continue under the Solé name.

In 1851, Abraham Buehler, a German-Mennonite immigrant, acquired land on what had become known as Erb Street. He used his blacksmith training to start his own shop at this location. Here he made and repaired farming tools for the local community. Under Buehler's leadership the business grew, and by the 1860s he added steam power to improve production. Known as Union Foundry by 1888, it merged with the well-established Waterloo Manufacturing Limited located on King Street. By the late 1880s, the two-storey building was looking for a new owner and new opportunity.

When Buehler closed his shop and moved Uptown, Joseph Emm Seagram was looking to expand his newly acquired distillery so he quickly purchased the property. Under the Seagram name, the building was put to use as a cooperage, lumber and barrel storage, and machine shop. In 1980, the building left its factory life behind and was renovated into offices for the Seagram Company’s engineers.

While serving as a cooperage, this building was home to workers like Bert Theil. Theil started as an apprentice learning coopering, the skill of making barrels. Many employees advanced from warehouse workers, to apprentices, to full coopers throughout their time with the distillery.  Bert and 10 to 12 fellow coopers repaired existing barrels in this building for reuse. Repairs included removing staves (the side wooden pieces used to make the barrels), tightening the hoops (the metal rings which held the staves in place), and steaming the barrel heads for reuse. Barrels were constantly in demand to hold the distilled spirits as they aged to the perfect tasting notes.

When the Seagram distillery closed in 1992, Peter De Groot purchased this building. The adaptive rehabilitation would see this building become Re/max realty. Today, it continues its role in helping people from all over the world find a home in Waterloo.

Stillhouse and Centre for International Governance Innovation

The Stillhouse was the heart of the distillery where grain and water were mixed, fermented, and distilled to become alcohol. The space was set up to follow the work flow, with grain storage, milling, and distilling operations along Erb Street. The column stills made use of the height of the tower with its cupola. The tall pipes of the still collected the evaporating liquid ethanol. The section of the building along Caroline Street included the fermentation tanks and the bottling room at one time. As the popularity and demand for Seagram products grew, so did production. Significant changes to the building took place in the late 1940s that made way for the next expansion.

In 1990, Seagram Company Limited announced it would be closing its Waterloo plant. This was due in large part to lack of space for expansion, and an increase in government taxation on spirits. What was to become of this notable landmark?

Redevelopment proposals for a hotel and cinema went up in smoke when on July 12, 1993, a fire broke out. The fire spread rapidly through the alcohol saturated timber framed building, causing $450,000 in damages and $100,000 in content losses. The damage was so significant that the iconic building had to be torn down, drastically changing the landscape. The cause of the fire remains unknown to this day.

After the remains of the fire were cleared away, the land sat empty and quiet. A very different feel for this once bustling landscape. A new vision to bring life back to this property took shape in 2010 when construction began on a new building. The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), an international think tank for global governance, moved in. The building’s special features of an inner courtyard and bell tower won the 2014 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture for what critics called “a profoundly humane environment.”

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) acts as an independent, non-partisan think tank, and is run in partnership with the Universities of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier. Their main goal is to network, research and strategically work “to improve people's lives everywhere.” Waterloo resident Jim Balsillie began the initiative in 2001 as not-for-profit to examine global issues and challenges. Currently, the think tank is researching digital issues in security, trade, law and economics.

This building has one unique feature you can see at the intersection at Erb and Caroline Streets. The north-east corner of this building has been cut off. The building was built with all four corners, however, in 1905 this changed. A dispute between Joseph Seagram and the Grand Trunk Railway (G.T.R.) led to a historic confrontation over a spur line running into the Seagram distillery. Seagram preferred to do business with Preston-Berlin Railway, a new company. The G.T.R. tracks on the Elmira line ran close to the building at the corner of Caroline and Erb Streets. In order to provide track space for the Preston-Berlin line, Seagram removed a portion of the building’s corner, whereupon the G.T.R. moved their tracks into this space. When Seagram removed another section of his building for the tracks, he enlisted the services of some of the members of the Waterloo Fire Department to use their hoses on the G.T.R. workers when they attempted to move the tracks a second time. The workers withdrew and the new Preston-Berlin railway tracks were finally laid, continuing through to the new station on Erb Street opposite the Seagram plant.

The warehouse was a busy spot at the distillery with barrels being moved in and out regularly. The whisky in these barrels was at least three years old. The racking crew working in this building turned and moved barrels to access whisky for testing or mixing. If the whisky did not meet standards, it was sent to the dumping crew who dumped the whisky! If the whisky was good, it was re-racked or shipped out by the shipping crew. The shipping crew loaded barrels onto railcars to be sent elsewhere for ageing, mixing or further testing. Finally, there was the leaky barrels crew. This crew consisted of 3 or 4 people who checked the floors of each warehouse for leaking barrels. The leaky barrels were identified and fixed. This unique crew prevented the loss of good whisky! It took three months to learn all there was to know to be a part of these crews.

In 1981, Charles Bronfman, Co-chairman of the Board of Seagram Company Limited had a vision to create a museum devoted to the history and technology of wine and spirits. The Seagram plant was now the oldest plant in North America and Barrel Warehouse #5 was the perfect location. Peter Swann was hired to collect pieces from all over the world for the new museum including objects from France, Scotland and of course, Waterloo. He would become the Seagram Museum's first director. Architects, Barton Myer beautifully adapted Barrel Warehouse #5 into a world-class museum.

With the help of architectural firm Barton Myers Associates, Barrel Warehouse #5 evolved into its new role as a museum. Myers, known for Canadian buildings such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, set out to create an iconic building in Waterloo. He wanted to take this 19th century building and bring it into a new era. After two years of construction, Myers created what some have called iconic for its mixing of styles, known as Canadian Postmodernist architecture. Part of his brilliance was incorporating the wooden beams from the warehouse racking system into the exhibit space, and the harmonious addition onto the back. The building was awarded the 1986 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture.

The Seagram Museum was a unique museum owned by Bronfman’s Seagram Company Limited. When the $4.75 million building opened on May 17, 1984, it was a star-studded event attended by more than 300 politicians, dignitaries and Seagram executives. The day marked the beginning of a new era in Uptown Waterloo. In its first five months alone, it was averaging 700 people a day! By then, the collection had over 2,000 items including a rare 1919 Pearce Arrow replica whisky delivery truck, a 35-foot tall column still, and a floor-to-roof barrel racking system. Other unique museum features were a fine dining restaurant, and a liquor shop with select Seagram brand products for purchase. The Seagram Museum was the pride of the local community, drawing visitors from around the globe.

After only 13 years, it was announced the Seagram Museum would close in 1997. At its peak, the museum attracted around 170,000 people annually. In its final year, attendance had declined to 60,000. The City of Waterloo stepped in to purchase the property. Many development offers were made and fell through. Waterloo Maple, a local technology start up software development company, became the first to tenant to move into the iconic building. The City of Waterloo sold the building to Research in Motion/Blackberry former CEO Jim Balsillie in 2003, moving his recently launched Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) into its new home. Other more recent occupants include online commerce giant Shopify, and Tangam Systems.

The Seagram distillery reservoir held vast amounts of water and some rather famous fish. The water was used for whisky making, and nearby in case of fire. The trout living in the reservoir helped keep the algae levels low and the water quality high. In the 1920s, a newspaper reported on the famous "whisky trout", claiming they moved with “shark-like voracity”. They had been seen climbing out of an ice hole in the reservoir and onto the ice to reach their food, creating what looked like a “mountain of trout”. In the early 1940s, the trout were permanently moved to a pond at Westmount Golf Course.

Redevelopment of Waterloo’s uptown in the late 1950s created issues with the once plentiful supply of water at the distillery. With the increased demand for distilled spirits post war, the water supply was no longer enough. Pipes were installed deep under the ground to ensure the cleanest and freshest water. Accessing water from an underground source allowed the distillery to expand with the addition of two modern warehouses on the property. Those buildings are now gone and replaced by a parking lot along this section of Father David Bauer Drive.

The earliest bottling room was in a section attached to the main Stillhouse which stretched along Erb Street and continued down Caroline Street. Since bottling was one of the last steps in the distilling process, it was located at the end of the building. In the early 1900s, the bottling section became the first place to welcome women into the workforce at the distillery. By the 1930s, Seagram was hiring young, single women to work the bottling line. Women proved to be better at completing the delicate handwork of gluing labels and adornments to the bottles.

Louisa Otterbein Riepert and her fellow women co-workers rotated through various jobs on the bottling line. Their tasks included hand tying a black and yellow ribbon to the neck of a Seagram V.O. bottles, applying glue to bottle labels and attaching them, capping bottles, and dressing Crown Royal bottles in their regal purple bag. On average, these women completed 20 to 28 bottles per minute! Women workers were often paid less than men for equal work. Pay raises were given as percentages, making it impossible for women to earn as much as men. Women were often the first to be laid off. Despite this, women enjoyed working at the distillery and were paid well relative to other jobs. Trudy Schneider remembers playing guessing games and singing songs with other women on the line to pass time.

The new bottling plants changed the bottling process through automation. Completed bottles went from 20 to 28 per minute pre-automation, to an unbelievable 135 per minute post-automation. Label gluing and bottle capping were now fully automated. Women were still needed to ensure the line ran smoothly, performing quality control checks to ensure labels were straight and filled bottles contained no debris. Now in company uniforms, these women adjusted to a new pace of work on the bottling line, learning how to do their jobs just a little bit faster.

With the announcement of the closure of the Waterloo plant, the plant’s long-running operations started to wind down production. Despite its state-of-the-art equipment and hard working staff, the final bottle rolled of the line in 1992. Even with multiple development plans, the building would be torn down and today the land sits quiet as a parking lot for local businesses.