The Keg Mansion
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
by Daniel Cumerlato
© Photo by Stephanie Cumerlato
Jarvis Street is to Toronto what the Aberdeen neighbourhood is to Hamilton. This is where the families of the city’s rich lived to be away from the businesses, and the blue-collared workers, yet still being in the place they helped build. And just like Aberdeen, Jarvis remains a strong monument with unique and stately mansions that could never be reproduced.
The Keg Mansion is one of these, and an example of how creative one can get in a time where families just don’t buy houses this big and antique anymore. Many get converted to apartments, or a Mac’s Milk (just down Jarvis), but why not a steakhouse? The Keg franchise is known for unique locations (just like the old factory in St. Catharines), and whatever keeps the building from being demolished is a good idea to Haunted Hamilton.
The house was built in 1867 for Arthur McMaster. This surname should sound familiar to Hamiltonians, and yes, this is the same family to found the university. Arthur was the nephew to founder William McMaster.
In 1880, the house was purchased by Hart Massey who returned to his beloved Toronto after living in Cleveland, Ohio, USA for a time. Massey’s daughter Lillian renamed the house Euclid Hall after their old street in Cleveland.
The Massey’s would become one of the most prominent families in the city of Toronto. Hart was an industrialist who founded the Massey Foundation that lead to new buildings for the University of Toronto and of course, Massey Hall.
Grandsons Vincent and Raymond became famous for other endeavours that were polar-opposites of each other. Vincent Massey became the first truly Canadian Governor General of Canada from 1952 until 1959.
Raymond was an actor, who had many great roles in big Hollywood movies and even got the Oscar nod in 1940 for playing Abe Lincoln in “Abe Lincoln in Illinois”. Americans were outraged that a Canadian was allowed to play Lincoln, but were silenced by Massey’s amazing performance. He reprised the role in two other movies. In 1962’s “How the West was Won”, a fellow actor commented that Massey wouldn’t be fully happy with his Lincoln impersonation until somebody assassinated him.
Euclid Hall was given to the Victoria College in 1915 and would serve as the first home of radio station CFRB (now Newstalk 1010), an art gallery and a restaurant before being purchased by The Keg in 1976.
Inside the lobby
The grand staircase in the lobby
The Ghosts of the Keg Mansion...
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One must wonder if the originality of this amazing mansion could lend energy to the ghosts that now haunt it. The Keg was careful to incorporate a comfortable dining and drinking experience with the original rooms of the mansion, sometimes causing an overcrowding issue, but a small price to pay for the experience of being in this building.
Lillian Massey’s Maid
Lillian was the only daughter of Hart Massey and the most beloved of the family. She was educated at the Wesleyan Woman’s College in Hamilton (once located where the Royal Connaught Hotel is today). She died in 1915, many saying that her decline started after her husband’s death in 1909.
So beloved by her staff was Lillian Massey that it’s rumoured a maid took her own life when learning of her mistress’s demise. She attached a noose to the oval vestibule above the main staircase and was found hanging there by the other maids. Most believe she committed suicide because of grief, but some say she did it because of a secret affair with one of the Massey men, and felt her secret would be revealed after the death of Lillian.
After this the maid has only been seen still hanging above the main stairs. She’s never been seen anywhere else in the house.
The Children
The phantom footsteps of children are head from the second floor. This was the location of the children’s quarters during the Massey’s time.
A young boy has been seen running up and down the main staircase as if playing. He has stopped a couple times and being seen looking down on diners in the restaurant. This lends to the idea he’s a true ghost and not just residual energy.
The Woman’s Bathroom
A presence, that to our knowledge hasn’t been seen, can be felt in the woman’s restroom on the second floor of the mansion. A woman dining at the restaurant was using the restroom and felt like she wasn’t alone. She looked under the stall doors and confirmed nobody else was in the room.
While in the stall, with the door locked tightly, she heard a strange noise and in horror watched the lock come undone and the door swing open. She said it felt as if somebody was peeking in at her through the opening. The woman quickly got out of the restroom.
Another woman referred simply as KLR on Haunted Hamilton, had an experience in the same woman’s washroom. It was after dinner and she was using the restroom before leaving. She carefully hung a bag with a bottle of wine she purchased on the back of the stall door. Looking down, KLR heard the bag being rustled and looked up in time to see the bag hit the floor.
She braced herself for the crash, but it never came. The bag didn’t fall, but instead was lowered by invisible hands and careful placed on the tiles in front of her.
The oval vestibule where the maid hung herself
The lobby and grand staircase
The Secret Tunnel
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Like many Victorian mansions of the time, the Keg Mansion has a secret buried underneath… a tunnel that connects it with the original Wellesley Hospital building. Hart Massy used it to quietly bring their son in for treatment. Some believe the son referred to was the sickly Frederick Victor, who died at the age of 14. This was especially tragic due to the death of his eldest son Charles only six years earlier.
Hart’s way of honouring them includes two city monuments in the Massey Music Hall for Charles and the Fred Victor Mission for Frederick.
By: Daniel Cumerlato
Founding Partner of Haunted Hamilton
Encounter with 2 spirits at The Keg Mansion
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While at the Keg Mansion last Friday evening, my husband and I encounted 2 distinctively different spirits or entities. We arrived for dinner at about 5:45 pm. It was our first visit to the Mansion. Almost as soon as I entered the Keg Mansion I felt a very excited but also an anxious feeling and I felt somewhat as if my heart was fluttering or having light palpitations. Thinking that I was just really excited as I had heard previously that some of the patrons of the Keg Mansion had experienced what they believe as unusual or maybe even paranormal activity, I placed this feeling far back in mind.
We were seated in the India room and were at that time the only guests in the room. Before long, I began to feel a light coldness that came and went with slight goose bumps appearing on the bottom of my arms. After our waitress took our orders, I used the ladies bathroom upstairs but on this first visit to the washroom I felt only a slight anxious feeling in the washroom.
Returning to our table and continuing my conversations with my husband, I increasingly encountered the feelings of coldness and shivers and goose bumps on my arms. During our meal this continued. At one point while I was speaking with my husband, I felt a light wispy touch on my fingers near my diamond engagement ring. I thought that maybe a fiber was attached to one of the diamonds and I began picking at my ring but found none.
Replacing my hand again to the table, once again I felt the light, gentle, wispy touch to my fingers and rings. This time I exclaimed out to my husband, what had just happened. He was very surprised but said he felt nothing touch him. Sometime later during our meal, as I was once again talking or listening to my husband speak, I distinctly felt a light wispy touch to the back of my neck and part of my shoulders.
The top I was wearing was a bit lower cut at the back and this was the area the skin was touched. At this point I began to describe to my husband all of the things I had experienced so far that evening and further told him of the impression I had in my mind of the spirit that was near me often and touching me during our evening there.
Both my husband and I don't drink alcoholic beverages. I told him that the impression I had in my mind was that of a young blonde haired lady who had a bit wider face and perhaps blue eyes. She wore her hair up swept and her blouse was a light color and high necked with a long skirt and it was also light in color.
I also had the distinct impression and saw in mind that this lady was sort of hiding behind me and peering curiously and shyly or even in a scared manner out at my husband. I felt from that impression that she was not comfortable around men and was perhaps even afraid of them.
All during our evening at the Keg Mansion this gentle, young, little shy or even scared spirit or entity seemed to stay with or near me and followed me around except when I went to the upstairs ladies washroom. I noted that other patrons in our room showed no signs of being cold or anyone touching them. As the room filled up with patrons, the room became hotter inside.
On my second trip to the washroom, when I entred there were a couple of ladies inside, but once they left the room and I was alone, I stood in the middle of room and waited to see what might happen. I didn't have to wait long, within a few seconds I felt a very distinctive coldness come over me but this time, there was a marked malevolence to it.
I felt and saw in my mind a blocked sort of band that would not show me what they looked like but I knew the prescence was a male. The male spirit walked around me and I had a feeling of being examined or looked at curiously from all sides as they circled me. After another few seconds, a lady entred the washroom and within a few seconds the coldness left me and it was as though the presence left the room which maybe it did.
Over the years I have had many experiences with other spirits and the paranormal. I felt that this young, gentle female spirit who appears to inhabit the area in and near the India room, was very much afraid of the male presence upstairs and she would not go upstairs for this reason. I also realised that this was the anxious feeling that I had picked up on when I entered the Mansion. I had immediately picked up on the fear and anxiousness of the gentle, young spirit lady who seems to inhabit the downstairs area.
I plan to visit and enjoy the delicious food and fine dining of the Keg Mansion again one day soon and hopefully I will learn much more about the 2 entities that I experienced one my first visit to the Keg Mansion.
By: Melanie Moussa-Elaraby
Investigating the Keg Mansion with Psychic Medium Chip Coffey, Star of A&E's "Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal" & "Paranormal State" (Chip is the one sitting in the bay window)
Stephanie (Founding Partner of Haunted Hamilton) and HH Mum Cathy Lechniak with Psychic Medium Chip Coffey in Toronto.
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