The Winchester mystery house is home to some of the most famous ghost sightings. It's an architectural wonder and historic landmark in San Jose, California that once was the residence of Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester, the widow of William Wirt Winchester and heiress to a large portion of the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune. The house itself took 38 years to build, and the lore is that it was built under the guidance of ghosts. Sounds like the perfect home…
But before building the mystery house, tragedy struck Sarah. Her infant daughter, Annie Pardee Winchester, died from marasmus, a severe form of malnutrition due to the body's inability to metabolize proteins. Annie, unfortunately, passed away only 40 days after her birth in 1866.
In 1881, Sarah lost her mother, her father-in-law (Oliver Winchester), and her husband, William. William passed from tuberculosis at 43 years old, leaving Sarah an inheritance and ownership in half of the arms company, making her one of the wealthiest women in the United States at the time. Sarah inherited a massive great wealth of $20 million dollars (In 2022, that would've been equivalent to $606.5 million dollars) and because of her ownership of the company generated a continuous income equal to around $1,000 a day (equivalent to $26,000 a day in 2019).
Side Note: After her husband's death, she consistently wore black mourning clothes.
Newly in possession of a massive fortune and struggling with the loss of her husband, mother, and daughter, Sarah Winchester sought out the advice of a medium. She supposedly hoped to get advice from beyond as to how to spend her fortune and what to do with her life. Though the exact specifics remain between Sarah and the medium, the story goes that the medium told her that her husband and daughter died due to a curse on the family because too many people had died at the hands of Winchester guns. The medium was then able to channel her dearly departed husband, William, who advised Sarah to leave her home in New Haven, Connecticut, and head west to California. William also told her she was to use her fortune to build a house for the spirits of those who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles, lest she be haunted by them for the rest of her life. Another catch was that Sarah couldn't stop working on the house either or she would die from the curse as well.
In 1886, she purchased a small, two-story farmhouse and ranch in San Jose, California. The property was known as Llanada Villa but would be later known as the Winchester Mystery House. Sarah hired carpenters to work around the clock, expanding the small house into a seven-story mansion. Due to the lack of a plan and the presence of an architect, the house was constructed haphazardly. Rooms were added onto exterior walls resulting in windows overlooking other rooms. Multiple staircases would be added, all with different-sized risers, giving each staircase a distorted look. Many of the alterations seemed pointless, which is explainable if she really was told she would die if construction stopped. Other strange designs included staircases that would ascend several levels then end abruptly, doors that would open to solid walls, and hallways that would turn a corner and end in a dead-end.
Additionally, Sarah insisted that the home be built exclusively out of redwood, however, she didn't like the look of wood so she had it be covered with a stain and a faux grain. By the time the house was completed, over 20,000 gallons of paint had been used to cover the wood. I guess when you're super rich, why not?
Now as legends passed down through the years, there are three main types of hauntings that have come from the Mystery House which are intelligent hauntings, residual hauntings, and shadow figures. Residual hauntings are purportedly experienced in the grand ballroom and the basement. Intelligent hauntings are usually no more than gentle tugs on shirts or skirts during tours of the house. One story from a longtime maintenance worker, Danny reports that one morning, after entering the water tower, he heard the patter of footsteps above. He ascended to let the trespasser know the three-story structure was off-limits, but the footsteps always seemed to be one step ahead of him and one floor above. His search culminated to the roof with no one in sight. Shadow figures or shadowy shapes that resemble people are purported to be seen roaming around corners, down long hallways, and appearing in windows.
A number of employees and a few visitors have claimed to have crossed paths with 'Clyde' the famous 'Wheelbarrow Ghost' who is a mustache man wearing overalls who is seen working on the fireplace in the Ballroom or pushing a wheelbarrow full of ash or coal in the Basement. He's roughly described like this to staff, "We really like the actor who was 'repairing' the ballroom fireplace, wearing the white overalls and a Victorian boater hat". There of course was no such actor.
Other strange additions to the house included a bell tower that was, supposedly, used to summon and dismiss the spirits. A séance room was built to speak with the spirits directly, reportedly Sarah would speak with her husband and daughter. The house has a labyrinth-style layout, designed to flummox bad spirits and keep Sarah safe from the curse. Hallways doubled back on themselves, doorways dropped down to nowhere and led to windows, stair posts were installed upside down and everything in the house had thirteen of something. Thirteen steps on stairs, thirteen panes of glass, thirteen windows in the thirteenth bathroom. You get it, lots of thirteens. It's unsure if she thought using the number thirteen would keep her safe from demons and spirits or if she just liked the number thirteen.
From 1886 to 1922 construction on the house seemingly never ceased as the original eight-room farmhouse grew into a 24,000 square ft house with 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 160 rooms, 52 skylights, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms and 6 kitchens. Built at a price tag of around five-million dollars in 1923, which today would be about $71 million. Anyone who visits the mansion can tell that no expense was spared. But when you're making the equivalent of $26,000 dollars a day why not? Gold and silver chandeliers hung from the ceilings above hand-inlaid parquet flooring. Dozens of artful stained-glass windows dotted the walls, and one window, in particular, was intended to create a prismatic rainbow effect on the floor when light flowed through it, but of course, the window ended up on an interior wall. Like, okay. Even more luxurious than the fixtures was the plumbing and the electrical work. Rare for the time, the Winchester house had indoor plumbing, which included coveted hot running water, push-button gas lighting available throughout the home, and forced air heating.
Unfortunately, in 1904, an earthquake struck San Jose and the Winchester mansion sustained a hefty amount of damage, but luckily because of the floating foundation (a foundation that equals the weight of the surrounding soil), the house was saved from collapsing. The top three floors were ultimately removed, leaving the house with only four stories as seen today.
At the age of 83, Sarah herself died at Llanada Villa on September 5th, 1922 at 10:45 pm of heart failure. A service was held in Palo Alto, California and her remains were at Alta Mesa Cemetery until they were transferred, along with those of her sister to New Haven, Connecticut.
The house was opened for tours a few years after Sarah's death and is still currently open for visitors to tour. It's known to be brimming with paranormal activity. Organs are said to start playing on their own accord and there are cold spots throughout the house. Voices are heard with no explanation for their origin and there's even been sightings of spirits in the house.
In 1924, Houdini even came to the house during his nationwide tour to debunk Spiritualism. Other experts that have also visited are investigator Zak Bagans of Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures"; TK; and famed medium James Van Praagh, who channeled Sarah at a séance dinner. He claimed that she expressed happiness that the house had so many visitors.
In 2019, an architectural historian met with the Mystery House's historian Janan Boehme, to present his findings on who most likely created the amazing stained-glass windows in the mansion. Boehme was convinced it was the Pacific American Decorative Company but there was no hard evidence until the very next day, a restorer uncovered a perfectly preserved envelope that had been hidden inside a wall for 125 years. The letter was addressed to Mrs. S.L. Winchester and it bore the elaborate logo of the Pacific American Decorative Company.
While there are still many mysteries in regard to the Winchester Mystery House it remains to be one of the most historically unique houses with an interesting background.
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