The Winchester Mystery House Of San Jose, California

Table Of Content

• Become an Atlas Obscura member and experience far fewer ads and no pop-ups.
• Winchester Mystery House
• The Abandoned 'Ghost Mansion' of Northern Italy
• Near the carriage room is an odd staircase that has 44 steps and seven turns ... just to get to the second floor.
• The Oddities of the Winchester Mystery House
• San Jose, California

A fireplace mantle takes up most of one wall, while wood paneling covers most of the other walls. After this conservatory, visitors pass from the newer part of the house to the older part, using a small set of stairs that once acted as exterior porch steps. The Hall of Fires is actually three small spaces that seem to have once been separated by curtains. Strangely, there are four fireplaces and three hot air vents in this space.

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But as Michele Debczak reports for Mental Floss, you can now explore the Winchester House from afar via a detailed video tour posted on the mansion’s website. In 2018, Helen Mirren starred in Winchester as Sarah Winchester herself. The story took the rumors about the hauntings in the house and ran with them, depicting a woman crazed by the ghosts of Winchester rifles.

Winchester Mystery House

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However, the baby was unable to process calories and died malnourished six weeks later. After Sarah Winchester passed away, there were no blueprints left behind. Explore this all-digital floor-plan of the Winchester Mystery House. However, due to the exposed areas of the basement and the third floor, which require safety helmets, children under 5 are not permitted. It is recommended that children must be 5 and up and be able to walk unassisted. We do ask that any minor be accompanied with an adult at any time.

The Abandoned 'Ghost Mansion' of Northern Italy

Perhaps the same mental process happens with a country’s historical narratives about its most contentious and difficult topics—war, conquest, violence, guns. The family name was synonymous by the 1900s with a multi-firing rifle, and the Winchester family had made its fortune sending more than 8 million of them into the world. It wasn’t crazy to think that she might have been haunted by that idea, that she might have perpetually remembered it, and just as perpetually tried to forget. Winchester Mystery House™ offers complimentary parking to guests. Parking is available in the front lot, and there is overflow parking in the Santana Row garages across the street.

Early Life

“She often would carve little spaces out of what existed,” Boehme explains. After the quake, Winchester had mantles and fronts torn off fireplaces and their brick chimneys encased in metal, probably so they wouldn’t crumble in the event of another disaster. Magnuson’s thought was to mix this up with new spaces to attract new and returning visitors. After ten intense months, 40 hidden spaces—including some even the staff had only rarely seen—opened to the public in May 2017. Carol is a digital marketer creating media-rich content for global audiences covering travel, San Francisco and the Bay Area, food & drink, outdoor experiences, and cross-cultural storytelling.

One of the first things you notice upon approaching the Winchester Mystery House is that the front door is not aligned with the roof peak above it—it is staggered slightly to the right. This might be a minor detail, but it hints at the disorder that unfolds within. The mastermind behind this architectural oddity—a sprawling Queen Anne Revival with 160 rooms—was Sarah Winchester, the widow of the rifle magnate William Winchester. Famously private and eccentric, she built onto her California home on and off for more than 30 years. Legend has it that she did it to appease or confuse the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles. Getting to know the house is, in a strange way, like getting to know the woman who built it—and no ghost stories are necessary to marvel at its creativity and ambition.

Furthermore, she would sleep in a different room every night in the Winchester house, and use secret passageways to get from room to room so that no spirits could follow her. Even more luxurious than the fixtures was the plumbing and electrical work. Rare for the time, the Winchester Mystery House boasted indoor plumbing, including coveted hot running water, and push-button gas lighting available throughout the home. Additionally, forced-air heating flowed throughout the house. Newly in possession of a massive fortune and struggling with the loss of her husband and daughter, she sought the advice of a medium. She hoped, perhaps, to get advice from the beyond as to how to spend her fortune or what to do with her life.

The Oddities of the Winchester Mystery House

Some heroic construction work went into making sure the new spaces were safe, according to Michael Taffe, head of the house’s operations and maintenance team. “There’s a lot of modifications to actually make that a route,” he says. “You had raw redwood that wasn’t finished; it had to be framed and covered with plaster.” Wonky nails were pounded flat, old earthquake debris was cleared out, and floorboards installed. "Outside in the front gardens of the mansion, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was what appeared to be a bushy-haired woman staring out of one of the windows on the second floor," a guest identified as N.R. The house teems with allusions, symbols and mysterious encryptions.

The workers and builders worked both day and night until they could complete the seven-story house. The house was seven-storey high before the 1906 earthquake but has since been reduced to four stories. The most prevalent story is that Mrs. Winchester was haunted by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle.

She had to put up with rumors of insanity and supernatural possession for the duration of her life. The home also had the most advanced technology money could buy, including forced-air central heating and hot running water. In this sense, the home showed off Sarah Winchester’s fortune in all of its excessive splendor and paranormal inclinations. In a short period of time, Sarah Winchester lost her daughter, husband, and her father-in-law, and gained a fortune capable of keeping a small country afloat. During the marriage, William worked as treasurer for his family’s company alongside his father.

It was the official home of Sarah Winchester, and was built in a Queen Ann Style Victorian style. The mansion is famous for its large size and lack of architectural design or plan. The mansion is currently privately owned and used as a tourist attraction site. Many including Winchester herself have claimed that the mansion is frequented by the ghost of those who were killed by the Winchester guns, as Sarah Winchester's husband was William Winchester, who owned a company that made firearms.

Unfortunately, in 1904, an earthquake struck San Jose, and the Winchester Mystery House sustained a hefty amount of damage. Thanks to the floating foundation (a foundation that equals the weight of the surrounding soil) the entire house was saved from collapse. The top three floors were ultimately removed, leaving the house with only four stories, as seen today. There was no plan – no official blueprints were drawn up, no architectural vision was created, and yet a once-unfinished house took shape on a sprawling lot in the heart of San Jose, California. Inside, staircases ascended through several levels before ending abruptly, doorways opened to blank walls, and corners rounded to dead ends. In 1884, Sarah Winchester purchased an unfinished farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley.