What’s the hottest ticket in South Sound? Touring this 116-year-old house

Tucked away in Tumwater is a tourist attraction that’s drawn visitors from as far as Japan, yet many in South Sound have never been inside.

It’s the Schmidt House, built in 1904 for Olympia Brewery founder Leopold Schmidt and his wife, Johanna Schmidt, and it’s home to such treasures as an 1800s bottle-filling machine, a charming bedroom designed to look like the inside of a ship, and even a real ghost story.

In recent years, regular tours of the historic house have happened only on weekdays, meaning that most visitors are vacationers or retirees.

This month, the Olympia Tumwater Foundation — which owns the three-story Victorian/Colonial Revival house — began offering tours on the second Sunday of each month, and they’re so popular that advance reservations are a must. Many of the tours for the early part of 2020 are nearly booked up.

“If it keeps up like this, we might have to add some extra tours,” said Don Trosper, the foundation’s public history manager.

Part of the attraction is that the tours are led by 82-year-old Bob Crim, who worked as caretaker of the house from 1955 to 2015, working first for Peter Schmidt, Leopold and Johanna’s oldest son, and his wife, Clara Schmidt, and later for the foundation.

“Bob has 60 years of stories for every room in the house,” Trosper told The Olympian. “We bring him out of retirement for these tours.”

Crim’s memories fill the sparsely furnished Victorian/Colonial Revival house and its basement archives with life.

Besides his duties caring for the house and yard, Crim drove Clara Schmidt around the city.

“I chauffeured her all around in a pink Buick convertible,” he told The Olympian. “I could park it anywhere. When the police came by, they’d look at the license plate, and I wouldn’t get a ticket.”

“She did a lot of running around,” he added, “and then when she wasn’t running around, we had parties.”

He recalls the family hosting house concerts and paying the Seattle Symphony to play at movie theaters, in the auditorium of Olympia High School (then called William Winlock Miller High School and located on Capitol Way) and later at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

He also served as babysitter to multiple generations of young Schmidts and witnessed plenty of childhood mischief over the years.

And then there’s the ghost, which Crim and others saw on numerous occasions.

For the full story, you’ll need to take the tour. But according to Crim, this tale is no fantasy.

Asked if he believes in ghosts, he said, “I know what I’ve seen.”

Schmidt House tours

• What: Bob Crim, who for decades was the caretaker of the Schmidt House, leads monthly tours of the historic home, built in 1904 for the founders of the Olympia Brewery.
• When: 2-3:30 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month and at other times by appointment for groups of 8-15 people.
• Where: Schmidt House, 330 Schmidt Place SW, Tumwater
• Admission: Free, with donations welcome
• Reservations: Necessary; the Feb. 8 and March 9 tours are nearly full.
• More information: www.olytumfoundation.org, 360-786-8117, history@olytumfoundation.org.
• Also: The Schmidt House is open for frequent free history talks, often held at noon on Thursdays, and can be rented for weddings and other events. The next history talk, about the Cowlitz Farm in Lewis County, is set for noon Feb. 6.