Business & Tech

Sports Attic Building Destroyed in Fire Opened in 1900, Historian Says

At the time, it was one of the few businesses located on Manchester Road in Brentwood.

The building operated for more than 110 years as a tavern.

The original building was constructed in 1900, said Dan Fitzgerald, president of the .

"It was pretty small," Fitzgerald said. He didn't know who owned it or what the business was called. Back then, that stretch of Manchester Road didn't have much activity.

It was "a one-of-a-kind place," he said.

The Engelhard family bought the property in 1926, built an addition and lived there into the early 1970s.

One of their daughters, Mary Engelhard Van Cleave, owned the building after that and raised her family there. She later sold the building to another owner who opened a tavern called the Brentwood Inn, Fitzgerald said. The inn managers later sold it to an owner who opened Ruby's.

Both of those businesses operated during the 1970s and 1980s, Fitzgerald said. The owner of Ruby's eventually sold the property for what became Sports Attic.

Fitzgerald said he thinks Sports Attic had been in business between 10 and 15 years.


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