The Winchester Mystery House

One of my dreams one day to be able to go visit California in its entirety, from north to south. In pandemic times, it might seem impossible to achieve, but one day it will happen, I have faith on it! One of the buildings I do really wish to visit is the old Winchester Mystery house. This mansion is located in San Jose, California and it was the home of Sarah Winchester, the widow of a rich man called William Winchester. This mansion is one of the best representations of the Queen Anne Style Victorian mansions. Nowadays it is recognized as an historical landmark and it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mansion is privately owned and it is also a very famous tourist attraction.

The construction of this mansion started in 1886, and since that time it was cataloged as haunted by the people killed by the “Winchester rifles”, a creation from Mr. Winchester. It is known that the construction of this home never stopped until 1922, the day that Sarah passed away. Sarah’s husband passed away from tuberculosis in 1881, and Sarah inherited more than 20.5 million dollars (in 2020 it would be approx. 543 million dollars). Most part of her wealth went to the construction of the house. Sarah’s daughter also passed away due to marasmus, something really uncommon for being part of a rich family, because this disease is caused by malnutrition and it is common in children in poverty situation.

Sarah went to Boston to visit a medium after this, and she was able to channel with her dead husband, who told her that she should travel west to build a home for herself and the spirits of the people that have died from the Winchester rifles wounds; and of course, Sarah did as she was told. In 1884 Sarah purchased the farmhouse that would become the Winchester mansion. At some point, the mansion had 7 floors, and one of the most curious things is that there was no architect involved in the construction of this home, and this is why the mansion has many oddities like doors and stairs that go nowhere, windows that looked into other rooms and much more, which it seems to be influenced by Sarah’s belief in ghosts. Some environmental psychologists argue that this odd pattern of construction is what has contributed to the feeling of the house being haunted.

After the 1906 earthquake in California, the house was reduced to 4 stories. This mansion was built of redwood, but Sarah didn’t liked the look of it, so they covered up the wood with faux grain and stain. It is also interesting the fact that the home has a floating foundation, which allows the house to not fall apart during earthquakes. This mansion had 161 rooms, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys and 3 elevators. This house Sounds like the perfect home to spend the time quarantined during the pandemic, but I cannot even imagine to pay for the electricity bill!

Sarah suffered from arthritis, so she took charge of building some “Easy rider” stairways so she could move freely. A fun fact is that there was only one working bathroom in the entire mansion, because the rest of the bathrooms were used as decoys to confuse ghosts and spirits. Sarah also slept in different rooms each night to confuse the spirits. The Winchester house has also many different adornments that were specially created by Sarah, and it is possible to find extraordinary creations, such as a spider web window and the repetition of the number 13. There is also another window designed by Tiffany, so when the sun strikes the prismatic crystals, a rainbow is formed across the room.

When Sarah passed away, all of her possessions passed to her niece and personal secretary. Her niece took the things that she liked from the house and sold the mansion in an auction. The mansion was sold to a local investor for the amount of 135,000$ and it was leased for 10 years to a couple that ended up buying the house. In 1923, after Sarah’s death, the house was open to the public. This house is the inspiration of many different things in the American culture, and the best example of this is that this mansion was the inspiration for Walt Disney’s creation of the Haunted Mansion’s attraction. In 2012, Mythbusters dedicated an episode to this house. Kari Byron, who was part of the crew revealed that after the visit she started having nightmares. Ghost adventures and Ghost Brothers also filmed episodes in 2016 at the house.

There’s a complete film dedicated to the history of this house called Winchester, with Helen Mirren playing as Sarah Winchester. I got excited when I saw this but it seems like the ratings are pretty bad, Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 13%, so perhaps is just better to keep on watching other crappy movies at Netflix. You can also find a complete podcast episode of this mansion on the Lore podcast that is called “Locked Away”. BuzzFeed Unsolved (one of my favorite shows) featured this home twice in their episodes, and the mansion wad also featured on the 100th episode of American Horror Story.

Employees and visitors have explained that they have crossed paths with a mustached man called Clyde that is seen sometimes meanwhile he is pushing a wheelbarrow in the basement or trying to repair a fireplace in the Ballroom. People have reported this to the employees by telling them that they loved the actor that was repairing the ballroom fireplace, when there was no actor hired for this situation. People have also reported gentle tugs of shirts during tours. Denny, one of the maintenance workers has reported that he has heard steps above him, but there was nobody at the house. By other hand, the Master Houdini went into the mansion on 1924 meanwhile he was doing his tour dedicated to debunk Spiritualism, and he did not find any type of paranormal activity at the house. A famous medium called James van Praagh channeled Sarah and claimed that she was happy with the fact that the house has many visitors.

I think that the most interesting fact of this Mansion is that it was built according to different beliefs and superstitions, and not to serve a specific aesthetic or useful function. How come the fear felt by the unknown spirits would ended up in a master architectural creation that it seems not to be taken too seriously because all of the haunting history surrounded to this mansion? That’s another mystery. Sometimes we think that fear is a bad emotion and it is wrong to feel it, but it seems like if its used as a creative tool as in the case of this house, it can produce wonders.