The Twin Peaks fan community continually amazes me by their creativity and projects that foster connections. After all, I believe if you like Mark Frost and David Lynch’s show, you are part of a “whole damn town” of friends. One such project was recently launched by the Great Northern Guestbook. Using a recovered set decor piece from The Great Northern Hotel set from the second season, this project is inviting fans to join a living Twin Peaks memory archive. I caught up with the project’s creator to learn more.
GREAT NORTHERN GUESTBOOK PROJECT
Great Northern Guestbook recently launched a unique project to both restore a set piece from The Great Northern Hotel seen during the show’s second season, and offer a way for Twin Peaks fans to contribute to a living archive. The project piqued my curiosity as it’s rare to find original set pieces from 36 years ago. I asked how the mailboxes were acquired.
“I went to the Mudlark Curiosity and Oddities shop looking for old letters, stationary, ledgers, etc. for a Photoshop project that I wanted to start,” explained Guest Northern Guestbook. “I was looking for two specific vibes: 90s Pacific Northwest Twin Peaks, and 40s atomic age (like Fallout). I struck up a conversation with the owner, Jared, and asked him if he by chance had anything with a Twin Peaks vibe.
He replied, ‘Surprisingly, not because I’m also a Twin Peaks fan, but I do have a set piece.’
I asked if I could see it. He literally led me through to a secret room hidden behind a bookcase, and there was the mailboxes. I asked him if I could take a photo, and he asked if I would be interested in purchasing them. A couple hours later they were in my living room. I wasn’t planning on picking up one of the coolest items ever…but here we are – weird cosmic luck.”
Jared had acquired the mailboxes in early 2026 from Ryan, the owner of Ballyhoo Curiosities who had them it in storage for some time. These mailboxes can be traced back to Patricia Norris, the Academy Award-winning costume and production designer who worked with David Lynch on several films. More on that later in this article.
Great Northern Guestbook plans to restore the mailboxes as the set piece has been damaged with the passage of time.
“The set piece has seen better days; it has water stains, some spots that could use wood glue, and at some point it was cut in half,” shared Great Northern Guestbook. “The first part of this project is giving the mailboxes some restoration work. When I first acquired the set piece I had posted about it online, a person asked if they could send a letter to the mailboxes. Multiple subsequent comments requested the same thing, and thus started the idea to turn the set piece into a living archive. The Great Northern set-piece mailboxes are a functional set piece, so why not let fans of the show send mail to them?”
There are 120 original mail slots in this set piece. Great Northern Guestbook wants to see all of them filled by fellow Twin Peaks fans. Parts of the living archive may be shared through photographs via social media, printed zines, and possibly even a larger book or collection someday in the future.
“Ultimately my goal is to build a physical archive that includes letters, postcards, photographs, artwork, stories, memories, and small pieces of memorabilia that fans send in,” continued Great Northern Guestbook.
There are three places where Twin Peaks fans can get involved or follow along – Patreon, Youtube, and Instagram.
The Great Northern Guestbook Patreon page is where fans will have access to sending mail, interact with the community, and see behind the scenes video, photos, etc. before the general public does. Photos and short form videos will be posted on the Instagram account, while longer form videos will be posted on Youtube.
“The easiest way to get started is connecting via Patreon which is where you’ll find the PO Box address,” said Great Northern Guestbook.
There is a free tier on Patreon to be able to interact with the community and send mail; you do not need to be a paid member to submit something to the archive. Membership will directly help support the time and materials required to restore the set piece, maker-space studio space, cover the costs of PO box, documentation of the restoration, curation of the physical mail archive, hiring guest narrators and second videographers, or printing zines.
“I ultimately do not want to put the set piece behind a paywall in order for someone to contribute and interact with the community,” explained Great Northern Guestbook. “I want this project to be open to everyone. Paid membership ultimately supports the project; it does not determine whose story is important nor guarantee that a submission will be featured. If you happen to have the means to be able to help support my efforts and believe in the project as much as I do, then Patreon is a place where you can help!”
The fan submissions will be collected, cataloged, and preserved alongside the restored piece, but the project’s success will depend on what people share.
“I am but the curator and archivist of sorts: the interactive part of this project relies upon the fans to send something to the mailboxes. Being able to one day share those physical pieces of mail in a gallery, art show, or pop up event would be incredible,” shared Great Northern Guestbook.
One thing I’ve learned when meeting other fans is everyone has a story of how they discovered Twin Peaks. For Great Northern Guestbook, the Log Lady introductions created for the Bravo TV reruns in the early 1990s was part of their first experience.
“I was first introduced to Twin Peaks in 2013 as the person I was dating at the time insisted we watched the Log Lady intro before every episode,” recalled Great Northern Guestbook. “Around that time, my brother introduced me to a friend of his, Sean, who hosted movie nights at his place, and they were starting a Twin Peaks marathon. Through these two people my fascination with the world of Twin Peaks began.
The next year brought the announcement of The Return. I purposefully held off watching Fire Walk With Me until right before The Return was released. In 2017, I was lucky enough to see and original 35mm print of Fire Walk With Me at the Seattle Art Museum with a few of the actors in attendance (Sheryl Lee, Wendy Robie, and Gary Hershberger). I was not expecting how raw and intense [the film] would be, and I left the theater feeling like I had seen something unnervingly profound.
When The Return was released we hosted watch parties every week. At the end of The Return, I felt the same unnervingly profound feeling I had at the end of [Fire Walk With Me]. I’ve been hooked for a solid 13 years now.”
When asked if they have a favorite episode or scene, or a character you identify with the most, Great Northern Guestbook loves the Twin Peaks High School student who does the moonwalk sideways (we revealed his identity as Jim Pennington during the Real Twin Peaks 2024 event).
“I love the backwards hat wearing sideways moonwalk dude from the pilot,” continued Great Northern Guestbook. “I don’t necessarily identify with him the most; but I want to. He seems so carefree. What a Legend! I wouldn’t say that I really hold an identity with specific characters or scenes, but I certainly have scenes that have impacted me.”
Charlotte Stewart’s performance in Part 9 of Twin Peaks: The Return is one of those scenes (spoilers ahead).
“The scene in Part 9 when Betty Briggs (Charlotte Stewart) sees Bobby, Hawk, and Sheriff Frank Truman at her doorstep, and confirms that she had been waiting for that day for 25 years is one of my favorite scenes of all time,” said Great Northern Guestbook. “It’s such an impactful callback to the original series when Major Briggs shared his vision of the future with Bobby while at the Double R Diner, especially with the accompanying backing soundtrack that is a direct variation of the song playing during the original scene with Briggs and Bobby in second season.
Charlotte’s performance in this scene, for me, was one of the strongest performances of The Return, and had such a profound tie-in with the original series. I get goosebumps every time I watch it.”
Our conversation drifted to the importance of physical media in this digital age.
“I have this belief that physical media is an effective way to prove that we have existed as a species through writings, drawings, and (more recently in human history) film,” continued Great Northern Guestbook. “It can connect us to our past in ways that otherwise may have been lost to time. In an age where responses can be generated: if someone takes the time to hand write a letter (straight from their heart) that person is spending their time creating something real. I’m a big physical media nerd at heart, and the thought of delivering mail to the Great Northern Mailboxes and being able to share those memories with other fans while creating a living archive of these memories is surreal.”
RESTORING THE GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL MAILBOXES
Great Northern Guestbook has previous experience restoring old furniture and antique pieces, but the mailboxes are the first time they have restored a set piece.
“Restoring old furniture and antique pieces was part of a job that I had at a log-cabin resort and retreat,” replied Great Northern Guestbook. “I learned a lot about restoration and preservation through the general and assistant manager of the resort who were both, like me, tradesmen and enthusiastic DIYers. The winter time is when the rustic cabins saw the least amount of guests, so I would be tasked with fixing up, restoring, and refreshing the log cabins and furniture. I’ve sanded, stained, and sealed my fair share of furniture, floors, decks, and handrails.
Some of my favorite restoration pieces came from the owner of the resort herself; a wonderful elderly woman who had several antique dressers, tables, etc in her private residence that would require maintenance every few years or so.
Objectively the mailboxes would be a pretty straightforward restoration project from a functional furniture standpoint, but as a set piece I feel a surreal responsibility to preserve it both as both a functional piece as well as a set-piece from one of my favorite pieces of media ever created. I reached out to an old friend of mine, Clara from Ravensbeque Studio in Colorado (who specializes in custom woodcraft, furniture repair, and historic restoration work) and inquired about what she would recommend for this project.”
Clara gave offered three restoration options, one of which includes preservation of the mailboxes’ original stain.
“I have decided to do a restoration that renews and preserves the original stain yet will still have visible water damage,” explained Great Northern Guestbook. “This is as close to the original mailboxes as it can be while cleaning the exterior, restoring and retaining the original stain, and waxing to give it further future protection. It’s a solid amount of work. Clara estimates at least 18 hours of fine steel wool work and restorative finish renewal before even getting to the waxing. But it’s nice to have a project again, especially one this unique and nerdy.”
This project is officially underway, and the PO Box has been secured. Great Northern Guestbook is ready to receive mail from you and I can’t wait to see what fans share.
THE GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL REGISTRATION DESK | A BRIEF HISTORY
As mentioned earlier, these mailboxes have a long history being a set piece created more 36 years ago for Twin Peaks. To begin our journey, we must return to the former City Studios in Van Nuys, California where sets for the show’s first two seasons of were constructed in 1990-1991.
Richard Hoover designed the front desk set of The Great Northern Hotel which doesn’t appear until the show’s second season. Behind this long wooden desk, the crew constructed a large mailbox-like structure which could both hold room keys and mail for the hotel’s Guests.
Decades later in 2011-2012, fans got a close up look at the front desk mailbox when the Twin Peaks archive music collection was released via iTunes. Two tracks contained these behind the scenes production photos of rooms 311-312 and 411.
The registration desk made it’s first brief appearance during episode 2.003 when Special Agent Dale Cooper and hotel owner Benjamin Horne have a conversation near the front desk.
We get a better look at the mailboxes in episode 2.004 after Louie speaks with Mr. Tojamura at check-in.
It only appears in a handful of second season episodes including briefly in 2.007 when the Navy sailors are in the lobby; 2.014 when Randy checks in Jones and Thomas Eckhardt; 2.016 when John Justice Wheeler arrives; and 2.017 when Mike and Nadine check-in to the hotel. It’s also seen in 2.018 both when Randy is at the front desk.
And later when Donna Hayward follows her mother to The Great Northern Hotel. The last brief appearance is in episode 2.020 when Deputy Hawk collects Audrey Horne to speak with Special Agent Dale Cooper.
After production concluded on the second season in 1991, several set pieces were sold at auction or suffered an even worse fate of being destroyed. Some items made it into hands of collectors and fans such as the mural outside Ben Horne’s office which was once displayed at Frame of Mind Pictures in Glendale, California.
It’s unclear how Twin Peaks costume and production designer Patricia Norris ended up with The Great Northern Hotel mailbox set piece, but it was discovered at her home on Vashon Island in Washington State on October 17, 2017. Ms. Norris passed away early that year on February 15 in Westlake Village, California.
Brother Jerry Horne from Twin Peaks Archive got a tip about an estate sale happening at Norris’ home in Washington state in October 2015. He discovered a house full of priceless Twin Peaks set decorations and props from the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, Blue Pine Lodge, The Great Northern Hotel and more. Thankfully, he took a photo of the original mailbox set piece once housed in Patricia’s barn.
One of those fans at the Patricia Norris estate sale was Alex Kostelnik, co-owner of the former Electric Lady Bicycles in Seattle’s Central District which operated from early 2016 through early 2019. Around February 3, 2017, Alex installed the set piece in his shop in anticipation of Twin Peaks: The Return airing on Showtime later that summer. By June 2017, he placed the set piece on Craigslist Seattle. Below is his original advertisement found in an article on The Stranger:
This auction is for an original prop/set piece from Twin Peaks- The Mail boxes/registration desk for the Great Northern Hotel. Many of you know that the exterior of this fabled hotel was actually the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie, Washington. I purchased this item at the estate sale of Academy Award winning set decorator Patricia Norris in October 2015. It has been kept in a clean, warm environment since it left Patricia’s Barn. I live in Seattle and the Auction was on Vashon Island. I also purchased a few other items of interest, one is also up for auction- the paper Canadian Goose from the roof of Ed’s Tank [sic] Farm. This huge wooden prop has almost all of the original room numbers still on it- there are only a few missing but don’t worry- Agent Cooper’s room number is still present. This thing is big, so local pick up is mandatory. I will not crate or ship this in any way. It is currently at my bike shop in Seattle, Washington- come on in to see it!
On March 30, 2018, Hollow Earth Radio – KHUH-LP 104.9 FM in Seattle – had acquired the mailbox set piece which they used as a rather unique fundraiser for listeners in the Seattle metro area. For $20 a month, listeners could have a “Twinbox” at the station’s studio. This Twin Peaks-themed twist on “MeetMail” was an “escape from the digital hellscape and a return to the supposedly more trustworthy model of communication that is analog messaging.”
The fee gave listeners a “hand-crafted hotel key keychain” that matched one of the Great Northern Hotel room numbers. You could visit the station during public hours retrieve your mail and gifts selected by HER/KHUH DJs, including “mixtapes, zines, letters, oddities from Goodwill, and random stuff from the station’s studio and offices.”
Unlike Hollow Earth’s mailbox program where you had to visit the radio station, the Great Northern Guestbook will allow fans who don’t live in Washington state to get involved.
At some point, Hollow Earth must have either sold or donated the mailboxes to Ryan from Ballyhoo Curiosities in Seattle. They were kept in storage until Jared from Mudlark Curiosity and Oddities shop acquired them in early 2026.
I’m grateful to Great Northern Guestbook for their time and additional insight about this original set piece.
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