The Winchester Mystery House, “America’s most eccentric and fascinating home” is San Jose, California’s #1 attraction and a historical landmark. Before the house became a tourist stop for those visiting the bay area, it was home to Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester.
The widow of William Wirt Winchester, she was the heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune. However, it was not an easy road for Sarah as she endured tragedy after tragedy. First, her infant daughter Annie died of a childhood illness, just five and a half weeks after birth. Then a few years later her husband died of Tuberculosis.
Soon after her husband’s death, she left their home in New Haven, CT and moved to San Jose. She bought an eight room farmhouse and started what can only be described as “the world’s longest renovation,” which lasted thirty-six years. She stopped only because of her death on September 5, 1922 due to heart failure. She passed in her bedroom at the age of eighty-two.
Rumors of the “mystery house” began circulating even before Sarah’s passing. It was said that an “eccentric and wealthy woman” was building a “mystery house” with round the clock construction. The reasons behind the constant construction are forever a mystery, but there have been several speculations…
Timeline
1886-1922: Began round the clock construction.
1888: Marion “Daisy” Merrenan, Sarah’s favorite niece, moved in for fifteen years. As a result, there are many opportunities to see daisies inside the house.
1903: Daisy got married and left the house.
1906: Great San Francisco Earthquake damaged the house. The 7th story tower and most of the 4th floor were damaged and later demolished. Sarah took this as a warning from the spirits that the construction was too close to completion. She ordered the unfinished front half of the house to be boarded up. Today, however, you can enter through the front door.
1922: Sarah Winchester died and the property was sold.
1923: Opened for tours.
1924: Magician Harry Houdini visited the house on Halloween night to try and debunk the paranormal stories associated with the “mystery house.” He left with more questions than he had answers for.
1930’s: Officially marketed as the “Winchester Mystery House.”
1970: Restoration began. There was 130 year old wall paper found in a stock pile that was used, and new pieces were made from molds of old patterns. Unfortunately, most of the furniture was gone from the house, so what’s there now are replicas.
1974: Became a state historical landmark.
2018: Movie was made starring Helen Mirren.
Today the house can be visited offering tours of the mansion, seeing 110 of the 160 rooms, and experience the bizarre attributes that give the house its name. These include a window built into the floor, staircases leading to ceilings, a chimney that rises four floors to stop 1 1/2 feet from the ceiling, doors that open into blank walls, upside down posts, doors leading to nowhere, a seance room, and much more.
There’s also Victorian gardens that can be explored, a museum of the Winchester Rifle, a shooting gallery, a cafe, and a gift store.
Why Constant Construction?
Sarah Winchester visited a medium, and the psychic told her that the deaths of her daughter and husband were payback by angry spirits who had been killed by Winchester rifles.
In order to stay safe, she would need to build a house that could fit all of the spirits that had fallen by the hand of the Winchester rifles, and to keep the evil spirits confused. She would regularly sleep in different rooms and take labyrinth paths throughout the house trying to confuse them.
She was convinced that once construction was complete she would die.
Another theory suggested that Mrs. Winchester needed something to occupy her mind to deal with the grief of losing her daughter and husband. It is said she felt as though she was cursed, and spent her entire life in mourning wearing only black dresses.
The House
The house was designed with an “eclectic Victorian-era curiosity.” It is filled with exquisite details such as Tiffany stained glass windows, custom made chandeliers, and hand-inlaid parquet floors.
In 1923 when the house was opened for tours, it would have been worth five million dollars equaling seventy-one million dollars today. It had several pieces of technology that were considered to be futuristic like three elevators, high-tech ways of heating the house, and communication devices with the staff.
There were many oddities built into the house including secret passageways, a door with an eight foot drop to the kitchen sink, a door with a fifteen foot drop into the garden bushes, stairs leading to nowhere, sealed off rooms, windows set in the floor and opening into other rooms, repetition of the number thirteen, a cabinet that extends through thirty rooms, and a seance room. Remember the Tiffany windows? They are placed in areas where they receive no light.
Most of the stairs in the house were only four feet and 10 inches and are zig-zagging upward. This design was incorporated to accommodate Sarah Winchester’s crippling arthritis.
There is a safe that holds Sarah’s most sacred possessions that is hidden behind the ballroom and four separate doors. Inside the safe is said to house locks of hair from her daughter and husband, and their death certificates.
- 24,000 square feet
- 161 rooms including:
- 40 bedrooms
- 9 kitchens
- 13 bathrooms
- 2 ballrooms
- 2 basements
- 2,000 doors
- 10,000 panes of glass
- 47 stairways and fireplaces
The Number 13
The number thirteen is used in repetition all throughout the house. Was it used for superstitious reasons, or was it simply Sarah’s favorite number? We may never know. Inside the house can be found hallways with 13 ceiling panels, 13 coat hooks in the seance room, 13 windows in the 13th bedroom, and closets with 13 hanger pegs.
There’s also spider web patterns decorated throughout the house for good luck.
Seance Room
Seance Room 
Looking into the kitchen
The seance room, or the “witches cap” was used nightly to get further directions on how to build. Some may think this adds to the allure of mystery in the house, however during that period in time spiritualism and seances were common.
This room also overlooked one of the kitchens that had no ceiling so she could “spy” on her staff in case they talked bad of her. Sarah Winchester paid her staff very well, making it “well worth their time.” However, she would not tolerate any gossip or bad-talking her.
Unexplained Occurrences
Along with oddities of the house in itself there have been many other reported occurrences that have happened inside the mansion. These include people hearing footsteps in Sarah’s bedroom, doorknobs turning on their own, cupboards opening, the locked sewing room’s rocking chair that rocks unexpectedly on its own, and the organ playing in the ballroom even though it no longer works.
Visitors to the house have also experienced different reactions while being there including feeling icy chills, temporarily losing their vision, and feelings of dizziness and anxiety. People have also said they have felt a presence while inside the house, and hear their names being called.
It is said that the spirits that inhabit the house are “friendly” and give off a “sweet feeling.” They are not described as being “dark.”
Apparitions
The most infamous apparition that’s inside the house is a man named Clyde. Through historians research and pictures of the construction workers, they were able to discover the man’s identity.
After passing during the mansion’s construction, it is reported that he can be seen in the basement pushing a wheelbarrow to the coal cute. He has a mustache and wears white overalls and a hat. If you’re very lucky, he will tip his hat to you.
Do you believe the stories about the Winchester Mystery House?
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