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313 Walker St
Port Townsend
   WA, 98368
800-300-6753
360-385-6753

The History

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Port Townsend was established in the 1850's by Loren B. Hastings and a group of adventuresome settlers. His wife Lucinda was the first European woman to set foot in the territory. The city grew and prospered due in part to its perfect location at Admiralty Inlet, entrance to Puget Sound, and in part to the unsurpassed beauty of this region of the Olympic Peninsula. The railroad was coming to Port Townsend; the future of the city was secure; Port Townsend began to grow and dared to dream of becoming the New York City of the Pacific Northwest.

In 1889 Senator F.W. Hastings, son of Loren and Lucinda, began construction on his new home, just before he served in the 1891 and 1893 Washington state senates.

Then in the early 1890s, as the population of Port Townsend approached the 7500 mark, the railroad decided to terminate in Seattle instead of Port Townsend. The rest of the country slid into a period of financial depression, and any metropolitan aspirations in Port Townsend withered and died.

In the midst of the depression, the Hastings house was purchased at auction by a Swede, Mr. Olsen, and construction of the house was finally completed in 1904. Olsen's was the first private home in Port Townsend to have electrical lights, an extravagance in the day. Tales of Mrs. Olsen, a spirited woman for her day by all accounts, abound. To make ends meet, the couple took a number of boarders, including the acting German consul, from which the Inn takes its name as the Old Consulate.

In the years following, many neighboring mansions stood deserted or were turned into boarding houses or apartments as Port Townsend became just another small town in Washington. The wealth of Victorian architecture and beauty were forgotten or dismissed as no longer relevant.

Wonderfully, recent years have brought a resurgence of interest in our heritage and a breath of new life to the beautiful Victorians. Restoration in Port Townsend is everywhere.

"The Red Victorian on the Hill," as the Inn has become known, has kept her original color through the years. Trimmed in white, with green accents, she looks now as she must have looked over 100 years ago: a graceful, warm, and friendly greeting from the town, her wide sweeping verandah overlooking the bay, white lawn chairs amidst flowering beds and birch trees, her porch swings inviting us to stop, slow down, and cherish the moment.

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