Schlee Brewery Historic District

Six buildings along South Front Street in Columbus make up the former Schlee Brewery, assembled by brewer Nicholas Schlee between about 1865 and 1896. The group includes his brick Italianate house and carriage house, the Bavarian Brewery of 1875 designed by architect George Maetzel, a malt house built in stages between the late 1870s and 1891, a stable of 1891, and a bottling plant completed around 1896. Round and segmental arched openings, brick hoodmolds, bracketed cornices and corbelled brickwork tie the complex together. Beneath the brewery and malt house are stone and brick vaulted cellars once used for beer storage. The district was listed for its connection to Columbus's German community, which dominated local brewing until Prohibition, for Schlee's career as a brewer and developer, and for its architecture. It is the only one of the city's three major German breweries that survives with all its components, including the brewer's home. Operations ended in 1914, the year Schlee died.