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Charles and Katherine Eisenbeis were two of Port Townsend's leading early citizens. Charles Eisenbeis (d. 1902), a Prussian immigrant, operated several businesses that served the boom town's mill workers including a brewery, bakery, brick factory, lumber mill and hotel. Due to his social standing, he was elected Port Townsend's first Mayor in 1878. After Charles's death, Kate Eisenbeis remarried and relied on a caretaker to maintain the mansion. The Chateauesque Style of the house recalled estates that Charles had encountered in his native Prussia.

Tel: 360-385-5750 (2011); originally, the Chateausque Manresa Castle had 30 rooms; the residence was built of 12-inch-thick walls of brick produced at Eisenbeis's own factory and wooden components came in part from his own mill. German craftsmen undertook much of the interior carpentry. (See "About Manresa Castle,"Accessed 03/09/2011.)

A Seattle, WA lawyer with ties to the local Catholic Church bought the castle in 1925, with the aim of adapting it for the use of nuns vacationing from their parochial school teaching positions. The Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle then bought the house in 06/1927, and renovated into a lodging hall for Jesuit priests completing their tertianship in the order. They renamed the building "Manresa," the Spanish town in which Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) founded the Jesuit Order. It opened to the priests on 09/08/1927. In 1928, a wing was added containing a new Otis elevator, chapel, 30 private rooms and classrooms. At about this time, the order stuccoed over the original exterior brickwork. The Jesuits sold the church 10/26/1968 to new buyers. Between Jesuit ownership and 2011, there were three owners of the mansion. More recently, it became an inn known as the "Manresa Castle."

PCAD id: 8108