Winchester Mystery House

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The Winchester Mystery House is a unique mansion located at 525 South Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California. Its construction began in 1884, and was financed and built by Sarah L. Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. Construction continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, until her death 38 years later in 1922. The price tab for such constant building has been estimated at about $5.5 million.

View from the southeast

The mansion is famous for its large size, and the fact that it followed no overall plan, except to be in a state of continuous rebuilding. Sarah Winchester believed the house to be haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester guns, a belief some modern-day visitors share. The mansion now lies on Winchester Boulevard, a main thoroughfare for San Jose, named in honor of the estate. The estate was known as Llanda Villa during Winchester's lifetime.

Contents

1 Inspiration
2 The house today
3 Depictions in popular culture
4 External links

Inspiration

With the death of her husband in 1881, Sarah inherited over $20 million. She also received 48.9 percent of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, none of which was taxable until 1913.

Sarah had lost her husband in 1881 and had also lost her only child, a daughter who died in infancy 15 years earlier. Deeply grieved and seeking solace, she consulted a spiritualist on the advice of a friend, who has become known colloquially as the "Boston Medium." According to legend the medium, among other things, told her that there was a curse upon the Winchester family because the guns they made had taken so many lives. She told Sarah, "Thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance."

Although this is disputed, many believe that the Boston Medium told her she needed to travel west, leaving her home in New Haven. The medium did tell her to leave, but it is unknown if he or she told her for certain that she had to go west. Regardless, there she would start a new life, "and build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die."

The direction from the medium is the reason she built her house in such a haphazard fashion. Some believe it was to distract the spirits who she believed were hunting her. She was reported to have slept in a different room each night for some time.

She moved to Santa Clara County in California in 1884. She was convinced that she was guided by the hand of her late husband. Many believe that she selected Santa Clara County, California because of the climate. Sarah Winchester suffered from horrible arthritis, and the Mediterranean-like climate is known to help soothe aching joints.

The house today

Prior to the 1906 earthquake, the house had been built up to seven stories tall, but today the highest point is the fourth floor. The house is predominantly wood frame construction, with a brick foundation. There are 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms. The house also has 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Mrs. Winchester's property was 161.919 acres (650,000 m²) at one time but now the estate is just 4.5 acres (24,000 m²) - the minimum to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. It has gold and silver chandeliers, inlaid parquet floors and trim. There are doors and stairways that lead nowhere, and a vast array of colors and materials. Before the availability of elevators, special "easy riser" stairways were installed to allow Mrs. Winchester access to every part of the mansion, despite her severe arthritis. Roughly 20,000 gallons (76,000 litres) of paint are required to paint the house. Due to the sheer size of the house, by the time every section of the house is painted, the workers must start repainting again.

The house also has many conveniences that were rarely found at the time of its construction, including steam and forced-air heating, modern indoor toilets and plumbing, push-button gas lights, hot shower from indoor plumbing and even three elevators, including one model which is unique to the house.

The house retains unique touches that reflect the beliefs of Mrs. Winchester and her reported preoccupation with warding off malevolent spirits. The number thirteen and spiderweb motifs, which she considered to be lucky, reappear around the house. For example, an expensive imported chandelier which originally had twelve candle-holders was (rather awkwardly) altered to accommodate thirteen candles, clothes hooks on the wall are in multiples of thirteen, and a spiderweb-patterned Tiffany window contains thirteen colored stones. In tribute, the house's current groundskeepers have created a topiary tree shaped like the number 13.

Today, several different tours of the house are available. The tours feature different aspects of the estate, such as main parts of the house or the gardens and outbuildings. A flashlight tour of the mansion is given at night on dates around Halloween and every Friday the 13th. Many tour guides have stories of their personal encounters with ghosts or other paranormal events.

Depictions in popular culture

In the 1950's the house became well known throughout the United States due to multiple presentations on the television show You Asked For It.

Issue #45 of Alan Moore's run on the classic Vertigo series Swamp Thing, titled Ghost Dance, featured a haunted house clearly intended to be the Winchester House, though the names were changed, presumably to avoid legal action. "Amy Cambridge", whose family invented the "Cambridge repeater" (called a "second-rate copy of the Winchester" in the comic) built a gigantic mansion at the behest of spirits, who told her that "the sound of the hammers must never stop"—a reference both to builders' hammers and to the hammer mechanism on a gun. In the issue, four people explore the house, since condemned, and discover it is haunted by the spirits of those killed by Cambridge guns, people and animals both. The house is described as covering six acres, having 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 13 fireplaces, and 47 chimneys.

Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves is written about a house with a mysterious passageway that is constantly expanding and shrinking in size, measuring from a few feet to an endless labyrinth.

Stephen King's Rose Red story features a house with a history similar to that of the Winchester Mystery House.

Tim Powers' novel "Earthquake Weather" incorporates the legends of the Winchester House and suggests that Sara Winchester built the structure as a deliberate effort to capture and channel ghosts as a 'mask' to protect her from detection by otherworldly forces.

Michaela Roessner's novel "Vanishing Point" is about a group of survivors of a global apocalypse who live in the Winchester House and keep expanding it.

External links

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