About The Turret Journal
The Turret Journal is written by Zhenya Lavy from the Adams Pragge House, 1028 Tyler Street, Port Townsend, Washington.
The house was built in 1889 by Albert C. Adams at the threshold of Uptown — where the ascending road becomes Tyler and the neighborhood that embodied Port Townsend’s aspirations for permanence and refinement begins. It is a Queen Anne Victorian of considerable presence — formally designated pivotal among nearly four hundred Victorian structures in one of the most intact historic seaports in the United States — and its history reaches further into the American story than its exterior suggests.
This journal attends to the continuing life of this house — not only its structure and materials, but also its light and lived experience across seasons — as well as its place within Port Townsend and at the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. It is also an act of recovery — of the people who lived here, loved here, and shaped the civic, cultural, and national life of their time, and whose connection to this house has been largely forgotten. Some of those stories touch the founding of Seattle. Some touch the Civil War, the origins of professional baseball, and the highest levels of Washington State government. All of them belong to a house that has earned more attention than it has received.
This is sustained observation written from within the house rather than about it from a distance — by someone trained to notice how space, time, and human presence shape one another, and who finds, in this house, no shortage of occasion to practice that attention. On occasion, Joseph Lavy, who stewards the house alongside Zhenya, may also contribute.
The Adams Pragge House has operated as a Victorian bed and breakfast since 2023. Those who find their way to Port Townsend — to the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula, where the Strait of Juan de Fuca narrows into Admiralty Inlet at the maritime gateway to Puget Sound and where the Olympics, the North Cascades, and the summits of Rainier and Baker describe the horizon in nearly every direction — and who choose to cross the threshold at 1028 Tyler Street, will find the house ready to receive them, as it has received travelers since the year of its construction.
Subscribe to receive each installment as it is published and access the publication archives.
Support the effort
Being part of our community is more than just a subscription. We hope you will participate in the comments section and tell your friends about The Turret Journal.
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
