The Winchester Mystery House is a sprawling mansion in San Jose, California. Its inhabitants have long since passed, and it’s now renowned for its extraordinarily enigmatic, i.e., insane design and the apparent ghosts the house is home to.
Ghost stories abound, and everyone famous in the ghost-hunting world has visited the supposed haunted mansion at one time or another. Indeed, even the most stalwart of non-believers can be shaken when exploring the nonsensical hallways and rooms of the estate.
Some tour guides refuse to walk specific corridors on the third floor in the dark. Visitors report a friendly worker in a white hat working on the fireplaces. Voices and footsteps in the winding stairs and hidden passages confound ghostbusters. The Winchester Mystery House is well worth the hype, and the history surrounding the manor supports this theory.
Winchester Mystery House
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The Winchesters: Wealth, Death, and Rifles
The Winchesters were the owners of Winchester Repeating Arms, a company known for producing Winchester rifles “The Gun that Won the West”. Indeed, Winchester rifles were very popular, leading the company to great wealth and prosperity.
Enter Sarah Winchester. Born in 1840 to a wealthy local family, she knew four languages, attended the best schools, and married well into the Winchester family.
Her husband was William Wirt Winchester, the treasurer, and heir to fifty percent of the company. They had one daughter named Annie, and life couldn’t be better for the wealthy young couple.
Then tragedy struck. Annie died of an illness in infancy, causing Sarah much distress. The tragedy only grew when a decade later, William died, leaving Sarah with a massive fortune to her name.
William Wirt Winchester
The Inspiration Behind The Decision To Build The Winchester Mystery House
Sarah was now one of the wealthiest people in the world but had no one to share it with. Rumors say she met with a medium and conducted a seance to speak with her late husband and ask him what she should do, but this is only a myth. There’s no way to prove the reasoning behind her decisions conclusively.
Some say her husband’s ghost told her to move west and build a sprawling mansion for spirits shot with Winchester rifles. Others say she fled from the specters that haunted her each night. Perhaps she was a lonely widow who wanted to start a new life far away from her tragic memories. All that’s known is that she decided to leave everything behind in New Haven, Connecticut, to move to San Jose.
Hand-tinted ambrotype of Sarah Winchester taken in 1865 by the Taber Photographic Company of San Francisco
Haunted: Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House
Sarah Winchester purchased an unfinished eight-bedroom farmhouse on the outskirts of San Jose and then renovated it for the rest of her life. The house remains unfinished to this day.
However, that’s not to say the mansion was unlivable. Indeed, the Winchester Mansion was one of the most innovative, unusual, largest, and most luxurious mansions in the world while it was being built. Sarah Winchester poured 5 million dollars (71 million dollars today) of her considerable fortune into the house, including elevators, elegant chandeliers, and furniture, the best paint and wallpaper money can buy.
A Beautiful Room with Fireplace Inside the Mansion
Sarah Winchester was a pioneer of her time, remaining wealthy and unmarried yet endlessly renovating her beloved home. She installed an indoor plumbing system that included hot water, a tremendous luxury for the time, and electricity, another new invention that was stunning in such a large estate. Elevators, state-of-the-art kitchens, walls made of redwood, yet stained with expensive grains because she didn’t like the look of natural redwood.
She spared no expense, and it was indeed the grandest mansion in the United States at the time. With such innovative home improvements, the Winchester Mansion pioneered some of the home comforts we take for granted today.
Same Room as Above from Different Angle
Rumors abounded about the sprawling seven-story mansion back in its heyday, just as they do today. Rumors that Sarah Winchester slept in a different room every night and moved about in secret passages to avoid ghostly visitors. There were rumors that she would die if she ever stopped the ongoing renovation and declared the house finished.
However, the truth is that Sarah Winchester was kind to the employees and was simply a recluse. She didn’t leave the manor much, and no family members were willing to speak about her after her death. She passed away in 1922, and the renovation finally ended.
A Picture of Sarah Winchester Inside The House
Her entire fortune was left to her niece, Marion Winchester, who auctioned off the estate. It took days to remove the furniture from home, and many valuable pieces remain in the estate today, such as the elegant chandeliers and a genuine Tiffany stained glass window. Visitors to the mansion can see original furniture and valuable wallpaper for expansions that never happened.
The Winchester Mystery House continued to keep secrets for nearly a hundred years. We still don’t understand everything about the house’s layout, and discoveries are still being made as people brave the unusual mansion.
Morning Sunlight Shining Through a Room Inside The Mansion
Chaos Incarnate: The Layout & Floor Plan of Winchester Mystery House
Anyone who visits the Winchester Mystery House is first struck by its size: this sprawling complex covers 24,000 sq ft, more if you include the surrounding garden and land. It’s now four stories tall, but it once towered seven stories until an earthquake in 1904 crumbled the top three stories.
Winchester Mystery House Before 1906 Earthquake
An architect never designed the Winchester Mansion. There was no grand plan for the house’s layout. You can still see earthquake damage outside the house, but much has been restored to its former glory on the inside.
The result is over twenty-five years’ worth of add-ons, with windows that looked outside now looking into other rooms, switch-back staircases that take seven stories worth of steps to ascend one floor, and staircases that lead to doors in foundations.
Winchester Mystery House Floor Plan
These doors open eight feet above sinks or fifteen feet above the garden, Tiffany stained glass windows that have never touched daylight, in the most confusing, terrifying, and downright unearthly house layout known to man.
Even 95 years after Sarah Winchester’s death, secrets and rooms were still being discovered. In 2016, a secret attic room was found, with a sewing machine, dress form, Victorian Couch, pump organ, and some paintings. It almost lends credence to the legend that Sarah Winchester left $25,000 ($300,000 in today’s money) in a secret compartment somewhere in the house.
The mansion is home to ten thousand windows (many of which are indoors), 2,000 doors (many of which open to walls, on the floor, or well above the ground), 160 rooms, 52 skylights, 47 stairs and fireplaces, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms (only one of which was ever operational), and six kitchens. It’s no wonder even tour guides get lost.
The maze-like mansion has befuddled even the most tenacious mappers and remains challenging to explore. Its confusing layout has only added to the mystery and ghost stories surrounding the manor, making it one of the most haunted attractions in the world.
The Winchester Mystery House Door To Nowhere
The Winchester Mystery House: One of the Most Haunted Destinations in the World
Everyone who has gained renown in the ghost-hunting world has visited the mansion at one point or another. A Winchester Movie, a horror film about Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House, was released in 2018, showcasing the rumors and hauntings surrounding Sarah and her house.
Whether or not Sarah was a Spiritualist who practiced Spiritualism with the help of mediums, the house remains one of the most famous haunted attractions in the world. Ghosthunters wait for months in advance, mediums perform seances, and the public is welcome to book a tour or explore the house independently.
Whatever ghosts call the mansion home, they get plenty of visitors and have plenty of action to keep themselves entertained. Whether you spy Sarah walking into her bedroom for the night, see a gentlemanly worker happily tapping away at a fireplace, or hear the footsteps and whispers of those killed by Winchester rifles, just remember you are the visitor. They are the ones the mansion was built for.
WINCHESTER - Official Movie Trailer - HD
Winchester Mystery House & Halloween –
Unhinged: Hotel
The Unhinged Halloween Attraction Is At The Winchester Mystery House This Fall
Taken from winchestermysteryhouse.com: Winchester Mystery House presents a new chilling haunt chapter, Unhinged: Hotel. Available for select nights starting Friday the 13th in September, experience one of the Bay Area’s most thrilling Halloween events. Step into the darkened halls of the Winchester Mystery House and navigate a hauntingly immersive maze unlike any other. And let’s just say… some doors should stay closed.
Unhinged: Hotel – Stranded with car troubles, a group of friends seek help in a nearby hotel. Little do they know, the seemingly empty hotel is hiding more than just empty rooms. As they venture deeper into the halls, an unsettling feeling creeps in. They’re not alone. Are you brave enough to step inside and uncover the dark secrets hidden within the walls?
Winchester Mystery House Halloween Ticket Options
This year the haunt through the mansion includes multiple routes. So make sure you book the right tickets
They currently offer the Mansion Tour, The Garden Tour, The Explore More Tour, and The Unhinged: Hotel Tour. They also offer group bookings. To learn more about these options click on the link below.
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