Rothschild House Museum 

Located on the bluff overlooking Port Townsend Bay at the corner of Franklin and Taylor Streets.

The Rothschild House is now closed for the 2022 season. The house will reopen in spring of 2023!

Reroofing the Rothschild House

Work is complete on updating the roof the roof of the 1868 Rothschild House for the first time since the mid-1990s! Restoration work like this presents the challenge of maintaining as much historic integrity as possible, even while the historic structure may not meet current building codes—as is the case with the landmark Rothschild House. While our partners at Washington State Parks have inventoried and shored up delicate aspects of the house, this project will still be a test of potential unseen impacts the building has sustained with age.

Projects like this juxtapose the use of traditional building practices with modern standards that improve the longevity and durability of the structure.

Thank you to all the donors who have contributed to the Rothschild House fund to make this exterior maintenance project possible!

ABOUT THE PROJECT  

Budget: $55,000 - $62,000

Working Days: Seven

Materials: About 2,000 square feet of wood shingle roofing and 120 linear feet of wood gutter.

Sources: The cedar shingles are sourced from a mill in Aberdeen, harvested from timberland in the West End of Jefferson County and neighboring Grays Harbor County. The gutters are hand-hewn redwood from the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Until we re-open, you can visit the House gardens (it’s a State Park!) and enjoy the view with a picnic, or explore 360 degrees of the grounds and each room in the 1868 Rothschild House State Park with this virtual tour. You can also watch a 3-minute favorite things tour with Executive Director Shelly Leavens, featuring the garden, kitchen wood stove, and Horace Tucker's famous banister.

Rothschild House History 

Step through the kitchen door of the Rothschild House and step back to the 1800's. Located at the corner of Jefferson and Taylor Streets in uptown Port Townsend, the Rothschild House is virtually unchanged from a hundred years ago.

D.C.H. Rothschild, or the Baron as he became universally known, was born in Bavaria in 1824. After traveling extensively around the world and engaging in several business enterprises, he settled in Port Townsend in 1858 and began a business under the name of "Kentucky Store." It was soon changed to the Rothschild and Co. Mercantile, selling varied merchandise.

Throughout the years, the business became increasingly marine-oriented, and by the early 1880's, exclusively so. The two older sons became partners. Rothschild died in 1886, and the two sons took over, moving the store to the other side of the Sound.

For the first several years the family lived over the downtown store. In 1868 Mr. Rothschild had this family home built where it now stands. His widow Dorette remained in the house until her death in 1918, allowing only minimal changes, such as the installation of a bathroom. Her daughter lived there for nearly 78 years, until her death in 1954.

Occupied only by the Rothschild family, the last surviving member, Eugene, donated the house to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. It opened to the public as a historic site in 1962, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The house has been left intact, as the family remembered it from its early years. As such, it is a surprisingly accurate reflection of our culture 100 years ago. The children's room looks like the children have just stepped out for a few minutes. The parlor waits for visiting callers. Outside, the roses of earlier generations still bloom; the herbs still rise in the springtime.

The Rothschild House is managed by Jefferson County Historical Society. The JCHS staffs the house, while Washington State Parks provides maintenance and oversight.