Have you heard of Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon? You won’t find it downtown. It’s off the beaten path in the West Hills of Portland, not far from the Witch’s Castle in Forest Park, accessible via a narrow, winding road through a forest of trees.
The first time I visited, it was the drive through the lush greenery that made the biggest impression on me. But the house itself is filled with plenty of history and mystery. It inspired the mansion I invented for The Alchemist of Monsters and Mayhem, a fictional house high in the Portland hills that’s surrounded by topiary shaped like monsters and boasting a conservatory of carnivorous plants.
The topiary at Pittock Mansion is well-tended and not in the shape of monsters like my fictional version, and the wide windows don’t contain a conservatory of unusual plants, but looking at this mansion, doesn’t it make you want to take hedge trimmers to the topiary a la Edward Scissorhands create monsters in front of the foreboding façade?
Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon. This is the original front of the house, now the back, but it’s the part of the architecture that’s most mysterious. Which, of course, is most important in a mystery novel filled with carnivorous plants and topiary monsters.
Placard in front of Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon
Henry Pittock headed to Oregon on the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s to find his fortune. He started out as a typesetter at newspaper The Oregonian, and went on to own the newspaper and make it thrive. Construction of this mansion (built in the style of a French Renaissance chateau) began in the early 1900s, when Henry was feuding with a rival at another newspaper that turned into a long feud between the two newspapers.
Research is such fun! If I didn’t have book deadlines, I’m not sure when I would stop researching and begin writing. One of my favorite ways to conduct research is visiting places in person. Since the Accidental Alchemist Mysteries are set in Portland, Oregon, each time I travel to Portland to visit my parents, I do a bit of exploring.
It was a gorgeous day the last time I visited Pittock Mansion earlier this year. It has a panoramic view of of Portland, and the weather was so clear you could see Mount Hood in the distance.
View of Mount Hood from Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon
View of Mount Hood and downtown Portland from Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon
Read more about a fictional version of the mansion in The Alchemist of Monsters and Mayhem.