Is this the spookiest house in the world? Widowed heiress built 160-room haunted mansion for ‘ghosts to live in’
Sarah Winchester inherited a fortune and used it to build the Winchester Mystery House in northern California
IT IS an eccentric old house, filled with secret passageways and stairs that lead to nowhere, sitting alongside a major highway in sunny California.
But history behind this tourist attraction — and the things that supposedly lurk within it — is much darker stuff.
It is the Winchester Mystery House, in San Jose, an architectural curiosity brimming with odd features that was home to the heiress of the Winchester rifle fortune.
Supposedly tormented by the ghosts of those killed by her family’s famous rifles, Sarah Winchester oversaw the construction of the house, funded by her huge inheritance, and specifically designed it to be haunted.
It was to be a playhouse for the underworld, amid the apricot orchards and palm trees in Northern California.
The house that guns built
Upon the sudden death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, Sarah inherited a grand fortune from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, the makers of the Model 1873 — known as “the Gun that Won the West”.
Winchester’s fortune was estimated to be about £15 million in 1884, as well as a £753-a-day income.
The couple’s only child, a daughter, had died from a mysterious childhood illness 15 years earlier.
Having left her home in Connecticut, Winchester bought an unfinished farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley and recruited a team of builders to construct a new house from the ground up, based on bizarre sketches she’d made on napkins and various pieces of paper.
The Queen Anne-style Victorian house had no master plan and even after Winchester had moved in, alone, she constantly requested additions and extra features “that made no sense and had no purpose”, according to the Smithsonian.
Builders reportedly worked on the house 24 hours a day, every day — from 1886 through to Winchester’s death in 1922.
The house became her lifelong obsession, and it was built according to her every kooky whim.
“Sarah simply ordered (any errors) torn out, sealed up, built over or around, or … totally ignored,” one of the house’s builders reportedly recalled of the construction.
It was, for a time, the largest and most expensive private residence in the United States.
At the time of Winchester’s death the mansion had seven storeys, 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, 47 staircases, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, six kitchens and 2000 doors.
Doors included trap doors and spy holes. There were rooms inside other rooms, floors with skylights, twisting hallways and secret passageways.
Based on Winchester’s designs, one set of stairs went down seven steps and then up eleven.
Another staircase serves no purpose, ending at a ceiling.
“Doors open onto walls,” author Pamela Haag recently wrote for the Smithsonian following a visit to the house.
“One room has a normal-sized door next to a small, child-sized one. Another has a secret door identical to one on a corner closet — it could be opened from within the room, but not from without, and the closet drawer didn’t open at all.
“Details are designed to confuse. In one room, Winchester laid the parquetry in an unusual pattern: When the light hit the floor a particular way, the dark boards appeared light, and the light boards, dark.
“Bull’s-eye windows give an upside-down view of the world. Even these basic truths, of up and down, and light and dark, could be subverted.”
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In 1975, after the house had been turned into a tourist attraction, workers discovered a new room. It was furnished with two chairs, a turn-of-the-century phonograph, and its door was latched by a key from 1910.
According to the Smithsonian, Winchester had simply forgotten about the room and had it built over.
Tormented by spirits
Prior to moving to California, Winchester had reportedly struggled with the deaths of her baby and husband and sought guidance from a spirit medium.
She became convinced her family’s deaths were caused by the spirits of those who had been shot dead by Winchester rifles, and she would be next on their victim list.
The medium supposedly advised Winchester to head west and appease the spirits by building them an impressive mansion. That’s apparently why Winchester never allowed construction on the Mystery House to be complete — her life was never in danger as long as the house was still being built.
Others have suggested Winchester simply busied herself with the construction to distract her from her grief.
But stories of paranormal activity in the house have persisted since it was first opened to the public in 1923, just months after Winchester’s death.
Some visitors have described hearing voices, unexplained creaking and other unusual sounds, and seeing ghosts, such as that of a young girl in a black dress.
Others have described being overcome by strange sensations, such as feeling suddenly nauseated or experiencing dry throats, in certain rooms. Winchester’s dedicated “seance room” is among them.
The current owners of the Winchester Mystery House, which operates guided tours around the estate, invite visitors to share stories of their spooky encounters on their website.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the house has provided the setting and inspiration for a number of horror-themed films, television series and video games.
British actor Helen Mirren is reportedly set to star as Sarah Winchester in an upcoming thriller about the house.
The house is laden with references to the number 13 - even the sink drains have 13 holes — and a bell tolls 13 times every Friday the 13th, at 1300 hours, in tribute to its former owner.
Winchester reportedly left a will which she had written in 13 parts and signed 13 times.
By the time of her death, she was living in nearby Atherton - she had moved there after the San Francisco earthquake struck in 1906 and she became trapped for hours in her bedroom.
Construction on the Winchester Mystery House finally came to an abrupt halt as soon as builders received the news that Winchester had died in her sleep.