Ann Starrett Mansion

An ornate Queen Anne Victorian built in 1889 by contractor George Starrett as a wedding gift for his wife Ann. Features a four-story tower with frescoed panels depicting the four seasons.

George Edwin Starrett was born on October 31, 1854, in Maine and arrived in Port Townsend in his late twenties, drawn by rumors that the small seaport on the Olympic Peninsula would become the terminus of the transcontinental railroad. A carpenter by trade, he established a workshop at Point Hudson where he also operated a sawmill acquired from George Downs, and by 1889 he bragged to the local newspaper that he had built 350 homes in the region. He married Anna Dedrika Van Bokkelen on February 19, 1887. Ann was born May 15, 1863, in Washington Territory, the daughter of Major J.J.H. Van Bokkelen, a territorial pioneer who had arrived in 1851 seeking gold and went on to serve as Jefferson County Sheriff, probate judge, postmaster, and one of Port Townsend's first city clerks when it incorporated in 1860. That same year, Port Townsend's real estate transactions totaled nearly $4.6 million, six banks operated in town, and twenty-eight real estate offices lined the streets.

George built the mansion at 744 Clay Street in 1889 as a wedding gift for Ann at a cost of $6,000. The three-story, 5,796-square-foot house combined Queen Anne and Stick Victorian styles in an L-shaped composition with a compound hipped roof and an octagonal corner turret rising more than three stories. As a specialist stair builder, George's masterwork was the free-floating spiral staircase inside the turret, making two complete turns without any central support as it ascends to the dome. The Smithsonian Institution has identified it as one of the last remaining staircases of its kind in America. The banisters and newel posts were carved from five different wood types, the exterior featured hand-cut ornamental stars, sunrises, scrolls, and wings, and the interiors boasted twelve-foot ceilings with moldings depicting lions, doves, and ferns. George also installed central heating, a significant novelty for 1889.

The crowning achievement was the dome itself. Seattle artist Otto Chapman painted eight frescoes on the dome ceiling depicting the four seasons, with each panel believed to feature Ann dressed in seasonal attire. Chapman ingeniously positioned small dormer windows around the turret so that on each equinox and solstice, sunlight enters and strikes a ruby-red piece of glass at the dome's center, casting a red beam that points toward the corresponding season's fresco. This solar calendar function earned the mansion its National Register designation as the "House of Four Seasons" when it was listed on September 29, 1970, one of only three pivotal Victorian homes in Port Townsend to receive the distinction.

The Starretts' prosperity was short-lived. In November 1890, the Oregon Improvement Company, the Union Pacific subsidiary that had promised the railroad terminus, entered bankruptcy receivership. The Panic of 1893 devastated Port Townsend, and property values plummeted as the population declined nearly twenty-five percent over the following decade. George and Ann remained in the mansion, raising their son Edwin Morris Starrett, born in 1894, with the help of a nanny and household servants. Ann died on August 10, 1914, at age 51, and was buried at Laurel Grove Cemetery in Port Townsend. George lived on until July 20, 1927, remarrying in 1925 to Mary Nelson. He was buried at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Port Townsend at age 72.

The mansion passed through several incarnations over the decades, serving as a French restaurant, a boarding house, and eventually a bed and breakfast known as the Ann Starrett Mansion Inn. Beginning in 1986, the property embraced its haunted reputation and began hosting "mystery weekends" open to the community. After a twelve-year stint on the real estate market under owners Bob and Edel Sokol, Christian and Cima Andrews, Port Townsend residents, purchased the mansion for $775,000.

Three distinct spirits are reported to inhabit the house. The most frequently sighted is a red-haired woman believed to be Ann Starrett herself. An innkeeper once observed her from the waist up standing on the free-floating staircase, gazing up at the solar calendar frescoes her husband had commissioned for her. Despite full-length windows along the staircase, only her upper half was visible. She is described as a peaceful, welcoming spirit who behaves like a hostess, wanting all guests to feel warm and comfortable. Staff working late-night shifts have also witnessed a shadow of a female form in Victorian attire gliding up the stairs to the second floor.

The most interactive entity is known simply as "the Nanny," believed to be the caregiver who helped raise Edwin. She is perceived as an older, austere, dignified but well-mannered woman with gray hair, and her primary haunt is her former second-floor bedroom. In that room, a built-in armoire with a gilded mirror has shown a partial reflection of her figure to both staff and guests on multiple occasions. She is attributed with a range of poltergeist-like behavior: lifting pictures off their posts when guests leave the room untidy, turning off lights left on in unoccupied rooms, tinkling fine crystal in the grand parlor, turning Bible pages by themselves, and causing canopy bed curtains to shake violently. Most notoriously, she is said to thump guests on the head if they make offensive remarks about the property, its owners, or Port Townsend. One young guest reported experiencing an eerie cold chill in the night followed by his canopy curtain shaking violently for several moments before going still.

George Starrett himself rounds out the trio, described as a mellow male presence who occasionally visits alongside Ann, suggesting their bond persists beyond death. While no formal paranormal investigation findings have been publicly shared, the mansion is documented in Jeff Dwyer's Ghost Hunter's Guide to Seattle and Puget Sound (2008). In October 2025, Earthly Imprint Paranormal and Olympic Strange Days conducted a joint investigation at the property, combining gallery readings with late-night paranormal investigation sessions. The Starrett House continues to operate as an inn and is a featured stop on Port Townsend's haunted walking tours, one of the most recognizable Victorian landmarks in the Pacific Northwest.