Rothschild House, 836 Jefferson Street, Port Townsend, Jefferson County, WA

Significance: D.C.H. (Henry) Rothschild (1824-86) was a German immigrant by way of Kentucky and California. He settled in Port Townsend in 1858, establishing the Kentucky Store on the town's waterfront. One of Port Townsend's most prominent merchants, he was involved in a number of retail, shipping, and stevedoring businesses over the next several decades. In 1863 he married fellow German immigrant Dorette Hartung, and together they raised a family of five children. The Rothschild House was constructed in 1868 by local builder Horace Tucker, on the bluff overlooking the Port Townsend harbor. Built in a restrained, vernacular version of the Greek Revival style, the form of the house is that of a simple story-and-a-half gable-front rectangular block, with a smaller, one-story rear wing. The Rothschild House was constructed of wood framing above a fieldstone foundation. Interior walls and ceilings were plastered. Simple Greek Revival door and window trim was installed in the hall, parlor and dining room on the first floor. More typical Victorian trim is found throughout the rest of the house. After Henry's death, Dorette Rothschild resided in the house with her youngest daughter Emilie, until her death in 1918. Emilie, in turn, remained in the house until she died in 1953. In 1959 Eugene, the last surviving of the Rothschild children, donated the house and its contents to the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission. Open to the public as a house museum, today the Rothschild House provides a unique and insightful window into prosperous middle-class life during Port Townsend's nineteenth-century heyday.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N781
Survey number: HABS WA-235
Building/structure dates: 1868 Initial Construction