Completed bronze bell by artist Tom Jay, with current members of the Camas Hall Board of Directors, left to right: Tree Swenson, Bill Porter (Red Pine), Carolyn Law, Pamela Sampel (holding Millie), and Walter Parsons.  Not pictured: Marty Cole.
Photos by: OlsonKundig Architects, John Sager, Steve Johnson, Walter Parsons, Pamela Sampel, Andrew Shaw

After eight years of tenacity and perseverance by its founders, Port Townsend’s community meditation hall now has a name, design and a site, and its board is moving into fundraising.

The intention of the creators is to create an ecumenical space where people from many traditions can gather for contemplative practice.

Founding board member and local resident Bill Porter, also known as the translator Red Pine, captured this well when he said,

“We believe that a town’s civic buildings, in addition to a library, a post office, and a courthouse, should include a place where people can gather to reflect in silence, and do so in the company of others. This should be a place where they can experience the support of communal practice, while developing their own inner peace.”  

The wonder of Camas Meditation Hall is that it will offer three dedicated meditation spaces: the Grand Hall, suitable for up to 50 people to practice together, and two smaller meditation rooms beneath the Grand Hall. In addition the facility will include a kitchen and a small tea room, where visitors can prepare and share tea. There will be plenty of space for many people to come together for their unique practices, and to sit, be, listen and learn.

The planned facility fits the ambience of the Pacific Northwest town of Port Townsend, Washington. This historic Victorian seaport town of 10,000 is populated by artists, retired professionals, teachers, craftspeople, students, ex-hippies and naturalists, as well as a significant numbers of tourists.

Gathering momentum

Despite being slowed by bureaucracy, regulations, design and land use issues, a global pandemic, and a contentious national election and its aftermath, we’ve successfully moved to the next phase: a working building design of 6,000 square feet. This was created in cooperation with the international artist James Turrell, and architects Jim Olson of OlsonKundig, and Richard Berg of Terrapin Architecture. A video allows a viewer to “walk through” the building on the land. Watch it here.

Camas Hall is now a functioning 501(c) 3 non-profit, guided by a six-member board; Our next step will be determining the final construction costs, currently in process. In fall 2025, once construction costs are finalized, we will move into our main fundraising function: raising the money to build, and determining how Camas Hall will function in perpetuity.

The project started in 2017, when four practicing Buddhist friends in Port Townsend came together to discuss their vision for a community meditation hall—one open to all types of meditation practices—where one could learn and practice different types of meditation. These conversations fueled our intention to build an impressive destination meditation space, one with special spatial qualities of beauty and light, for quiet, contemplation, teaching and learning.

An original site at Fort Worden State Park was planned, but then in 2018 we had to find a new direction, after state parks officials denied the application as unsuitable. Then in 2021 a generous donor funded the purchase of four plots of land totaling 20,000 square feet, in an area close to the center of Port Townsend. Additional funds were raised, and a bronze bell was created, designed and forged by late local artist Tom Jay.

The center’s name – Camas Meditation Hall – is in honor of the sacred camas lily, camassia quamash, the native plant critical to the survival of the regional indigenous peoples who have populated the lands here on the Quimper Peninsula for thousands of years. This camas lily grows on a small patch of original prairie located adjacent to and on our purchased land.

We thus selected the name Camas Meditation Hall to honor the plant’s presence, and the historic land and indigenous peoples’ history that makes this space possible. In June 2025 we installed a sign saying, “Future Home of Camas Hall,” which pictures the new building design.

Given the increasing chaos of our global world, our belief in the importance and need for a local community space for all to learn and practice meditation of all types is essential. As Red Pine said, referring to the sixth Chinese Zen patriarch: “Huineng repeatedly states that ‘Meditation and wisdom are one,’ so if we build a meditation hall the wisdom will come with it, and all beings will benefit.”

Please consider helping us as we bring our vision to life, and join our community. Please visit our website to join our newsletter list, and to learn the many ways there to donate.

We continue to believe, in and hold the vision for, our community ecumenical meditation space. We believe this will be a beautiful, spacious, and memorable building, which will exist for many generations. Like the tortoise we will cross the finish line eventually, and will have a stunning legacy meditation space to share with Port Townsend and the world.