port townsend articles

This article from the magazine "Where to Retire" was published in their Fall 2000 issue.

UNDISCOVERED HAVEN

By Stanton H. Patty
Port Townsend

Located on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Port Townsend is regarded as one of the country's best preserved examples of a Victorian Seaport.

A sense of history lingers in this 19th-century seaport on Washington's Olympic Peninsula

Located on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Port Townsend is regarded as one of the country's best preserved examples of a Victorian Seaport.

Port Townsend always has been a dreamscape. Back in the 1890s, the picturesque seaport in the northwestern corner of Washington State boasted that it was on the way to becoming the "New York of the West." That was when city fathers were certain that a railroad northward from the Columbia Ri ver would bypass Seattle and roll into Port Townsend. It never happened.
But later, as big-city residents, began searching out quiet zones for their retirement years, dreams did come true in old Port Townsend. "We live in paradise," says Helen Cleveland, a Port Townsend resident since
1995. "But, shhh, we don't want everyone to know what a wonderful place this is."

Helen and her husband, Robert, moved to Port Townsend from Minneapolis by way of adventurous working years in Australia, Singapore and Manhattan. Robert, 64, retired from a career in merchant banking and sales. England-born Helen, 60, was a librarian and office manager. Now they have a 2,300-squarefoot home near Port Townsend's airport, with a splendid garden of rhododendrons and azaleas and what Helen describes as a "knock-dead" view of 10,778-foot-high Mount Baker across Puget Sound in Washington's Cascade Range.

Another happily retired couple in Port Townsend is Richard and Anne Schneider, who built a vacation home in Port Townsend in 1993. For the next three years Dick Schneider split his time between Port Townsend and his investment-business office in Southern California.

"Then one day l had a great revelation," Dick recalls. "I asked myself, 'Why am I leaving this great place?' Right then, I decided to retire, and here we are."

The Schneiders have a waterfront home on two acres of property - plus a 48-foot boat for cruising through British Columbia and other destinations. They didn't wait for their Social Security years to retire - Dick is 59, and Anne is 58 - and they thoroughly researched their options. "We spent 10 years looking for a retirement place," Dick says. "This is it."

Another couple who took special care in choosing a retirement community was Bobby and Rose Morrison, who both were working in the California prison system when they began methodical retirement planning. That was in 1987, and they already had set 1996 as their retirement date.

Bobby, 62, was based in Sacramento, in the central office of the California Department of Corrections, implementing wheelchair access and other such facilities for disabled inmates. Rose, 54, was a nurse consultant, helping to oversee medical care for a dozen prisons.

"We had a target," says Rose. "We're planners. First, we made individual lists of key things we wanted in a retirement place. Then we merged our lists and prioritized."

Among their prime factors: a close to-nature saltwater setting, adequate medical facilities, a quality library system, strong cultural assets and proximity to a major city for shopping and the arts. Port Townsend, population 8,200, met all the requirements for the Morrisons and many of their retired neighbors.

The retirees also are aware that they reside in one of the Pacific Northwest's history-rich communities. Port Townsend was founded in 1851, six months before settlers reached nearby Seattle. Farming, logging and seafaring were the first industries.

Because of its commanding site at the entrance to Puget Sound, the United States government soon designated Port Townsend as headquarters of a busy customs district. The stampede to the Klondike gold fields was underway. A steady procession of vessels steaming to and from Alaska - through the waters of neighboring Canada - were required to check in with customs inspectors at Port Townsend. There also was a growing trade between Puget Sound and Asia.

Saloons, brothels and assorted other nefarious enterprises crowded Water Street, the main drag. Port Townsend was a brawling port with a reputation almost as wicked as that of San Francisco's Barbary Coast. Proper families built fine Victorian homes on a bluff above the harbor, and stairways linking the bluff with downtown were declared "off limits" to the soiled doves of Water Street.

Just as the 19th century was ebbing, Port Townsend had high hopes of connecting to a major railroad out of Portland, OR. Speculators framed Water Street with showy buildings built of brick. Promoters laid 25 miles or so of railroad track toward Portland. Property values soared, and boosters dubbed Port Townsend "the inevitable New York."

But the dream crashed in 1904 when civic leaders were handed a telegram with the news that the Union Pacific Railroad had decided to go to Seattle instead. Downtown construction projects halted so suddenly that carpentry tools were found years later in the upper stories of unfinished business buildings. Perhaps half of the town's 7,000 or so citizens departed over the next year.

Many of the elegant Victorian homes perched on a bluff overlooking the harbor have been converted to bed-and-breakfast inns.

Many of the elegant Victorian homes perched on a bluff overlooking the harbor have been converted to bed-and-breakfast inns.

PortTownsend survived - frozen in time as a museum of a town - until a few years ago when it was rediscovered by city dwellers. Now most of this treasure of a town on Washington's Olympic Peninsula is preserve as a national historic district. The sturdy brick buildings along Water Street are restaurants, galleries and offices. Many of the elegant Victorians on the virtuous bluff are bed-and. breakfast inns.

And retirees such as Bob and Helen Cleveland are happy to be a part of this contented community. "The only way they will ever get me out of Port Townsend is feet first," vows Helen.

The Clevelands and many of their friends are active in Centrum, a thriving, nonprofit center for the arts at adjacent Fort Worden State Park. Retirees volunteer as ushers, for office work and other chores. Centrum features workshops and festivals that range from jazz to classics, from writers' conferences to teacher training.

Maybe you remember seeing Fort Worden in the movies. The former military post was the setting for "An Officer and a Gentleman." But Port Townsend's transplants didn't need directions from Hollywood to find Port Townsend. "I call it serendipity," says Anne Schneider.

The Schneiders had considered several areas for retirement, including Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California. Then one day in 1990, while on vacation, they happened to drive through Port Townsend on the way to catch a ferry to nearby Whidbey Island.

"Suddenly, we realized Port Townsend was what we had been looking for," Dick Schneider remembers. "We stopped at a real estate office and asked them to show us some properties. Right after we returned home (to Dana Point, CA), I went to my office and called the Realtor in Port Townsend and arranged to buy a waterfront lot."

Among Port Townsend's assets, the Schneiders say, are fascinating people. "It's an eclectic mix of successful, well-traveled people who have chosen to be here - just great people," Dick says. Anne Schneider puts it this way: "There's a heart and soul to this town."

Jefferson General Hospital, Port Townsend's only hospital, offers excellent care, Dick says, and the stylish community is attracting talented young physicians. Also available, for critical care patients, are air-ambulance helicopterflights to medical centers in Seattle. "But our hospital can handle a lot of heavy-duty stuff," Dick says.

Dick Schneider stays busy with boating and gardening and as a board member of Port Townsend's Marine Science Center. Anne Schneider is president of the Centrum board and serves with Working Images, an organization that provides appropriate clothing for women leaving the welfare rolls for the work force. Somehow the Schneiders still find time to travel. Next winter they will participate in a study cruise to the Antarctic.

Bob and Helen Cleveland are among Port Townsend's more adventurous retirees. In 1969, they went to Australia as migrants, at a time when Australia was seeking newcomers with strong skills. They stayed six years.

"We went without a position, but the odds were good for Americans," Bob recalls. Soon Bob was named an assistant to the chairman of a merchant bank in Sydney.

It was on the way to Australia that the Clevelands met a couple from Vancouver, British Columbia, who suggested they visit Port Townsend. "We did, and we liked it instantly," says Helen Cleveland. "This definitely is God's country."

Both volunteer at Centrum events. They hike and camp through the Olympic Peninsula, including outings in nearby 897,000-acre Olympic National Park. Bob is a flyfishing enthusiast who finds productive catch-and-release waters in the area's streams and lakes. Their travel schedule also is full. "We're just back from Nepal, India and Japan," Helen says. "Next will be Ireland."

Bobby and Rose Morrison hope to visit Europe next year, but they might have a difficult time tearing themselves away from Port Townsend for a few weeks. "There are two deer walking around here as I am talking to you," Bobby says. "It's a great sight as long as they don't eat my azaleas."

The Morrisons have a three-bedroom house with a 10 by 40 foot outdoor deck that overlooks a serene half-acre of trees and shrubs. "We hear birds and know that there are four-footed types out there," Bobby says. "This is special."

The Morrisons consider their neighbors special, too. "The people here are very nice, very honest, very open and intelligent," Bobby says. "They are willing to accept ideas and to express opinions. I guess we are 'closet hippies."'

Fort Worden State Park offers beaches, hiking trails and the thriving Centrum center for the arts.

There isn't much time for loafing on the Morrisons' schedule. Rose Morrison volunteers at the Port Townsend Visitor Center and at Centrum. The couple also tries to walk at least two miles a day, often with a dachshund named Mischief'. "Sometimes, on gray days, we miss the sunshine," admits Bobby Morrison. "Then we toss another log on the fire and cuddle up and everything's OK."

Capt. George Vancouver, the English navigator, put Port Townsend on the map when he sailed by in 1792 aboard the HMS Discovery. Vancouver sighted what he described as "a very safe and capacious harbor." He named it Port Townshend for his friend, the marquis of Townshend. American settlers dropped the "h," and that's the way it stayed.

George Townshend, the marquis, never saw his namesake town. But his younger brother, Charles, certainly left his mark on America. It was Charles Townshend who was responsible for imposing the detestable tax on tea and other goods that resulted in the Boston Tea Party.

"There's a real sense of history here," says Bobby Morrison. "And it's just a darned nice place."

Stanton H. Patty, a writer and photographer in Vancouver, WA, is a former assistant travel editor of The Seattle Times.

Go back | Port Townsend Index | Home