Rerun: The house that death built (orig. 01/09/10)

----
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years, and is reported to be haunted. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, but is now a tourist attraction. Under Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around-the-clock, without interruption, from 1884 until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million (if paid in 1922, this would be equivalent to almost $70 million in 2008 dollars). The mansion is renowned for its size and utter lack of any master building plan. According to popular belief, Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California.





'Deeply saddened by the deaths of her daughter Annie in 1866 and her young husband in 1881, and seeking solace, Winchester consulted a medium on the advice of a psychic. The medium, who has become known colloquially as the "Boston Medium," told Winchester that she believed there to be a curse upon the Winchester family because the guns they made had taken so many lives. The psychic told Winchester that "thousands of people have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking deep vengeance." The Boston Medium told Winchester that she had to leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must "build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You must never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live forever. But if you stop, then you will die too."





'Prior to the 1906 earthquake, the house had been built up to seven stories tall, but today it is only four stories. The house is predominantly made of redwood frame construction, with a floating foundation that is believed to have saved the estate from total collapse in both the 1906 earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. There are about 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms, one completed and one under construction. The house also has 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Roughly 20,500 gallons (76,000 liters) of paint were required to paint the house. Due to the sheer size of the house, by the time every section of the house was painted, the workers had to start repainting again.' -- collaged from several sources






Winchester Mystery House Official Website
The Mystery House Guide
Winchester Mystery House: The Haunted History
The House that Death Built, 1937
Winchester Mystery House @ Lost Destinations
Winchester Mystery House @ Bad Language
More Winchester Mystery House videos




Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.





One of the first things guests notice is a large photograph of Sarah Winchester in her carriage. The photograph was taken in the gardens. Mrs. Winchester never allowed herself to be photographed after the death or her husband, but one of the farmhands fell in love with her, and hid in the bushes just outside of the carriage entrance to capture her on film. One oddity in the room is a door that opens to the wall, one of 78 such doors found in the house. The other oddity in the room is hidden. When the tour guides introduce Mrs. Winchester, they mention that she stood 4'10" tall. To illustrate, they point to a very short closet door that also measures 4'10", implying that it was cut to match Mrs. Winchester. Maybe it was, but it was also cut to fit the staircase that runs above it, a staircase so steep that its known as 'The Vertical Staircase.' The Vertical Staircase is no longer on the tour route, and probably hasn't been for decades.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



These stairs do genuinely lead right up to a blank ceiling, lending credence to the idea that Mrs. Winchester built the house to confuse the spirits. In the same room as the staircase is a stained-glass window that Mrs. Winchester designed. The window has a spider web pattern laced with thirteen blue and amber stones, a number known to have spiritual significance to Mrs. Winchester.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The Goofy Staircase is the first example of the fifteen switchback staircases one encounters in the house. The steps on these staircases rise only a couple of inches, and in this case there are more than 5000 steps between the first and third floors. Climbing the stairs is not at all easy, and one must walk very slowly or risk constantly falling down.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The Seance Room measures only a few yards across, has simple wood panel walls, and is only reachable by way of a secret passage and entrance. The room contains a door that opens to reveal closet with no floor. Stepping into the closet would deposit you in a first floor kitchen sink. It also boasts thirteen coat hooks, sometimes claimed to have held ceremonial robes worn communing with the spirits. And speaking of sinks and Winchester's obsession with the number thirteen, every sink drain in the house has thirteen holes.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



One interesting fact about the unfinished dressing room is that its at least a foot higher in elevation than the seance room, despite the fact that they adjoin. In fact, the entire second floor of the mansion sits on three different levels, roughly corresponding to the height of the original structures that became part of the house. The front rooms of the mansion match the original farmhouse that sat on the property at the time of Mrs. Winchester's arrival, while the middle rooms are built around a water tower enveloped during construction. The back rooms, which end with the séance room are roughly on level with the barn structure that originally occupied the rear portion of the site. The room also features a skylight window in the floor, one of 52 in the house.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The North Conservatory is one of the many rooms Mrs. Winchester devoted to plants and gardening. The big interest is not what's in the North Conservatory, but what you can see from the room. About one-third of the mansion is off limits to guests because the rooms are too dangerous or fragile for guests to travel through. The unfinished rooms you see through the window glass in the North Conservatory belong to the 'dangerous and fragile' category of rooms, and even employees can't enter without special permission. If you look closely you can spot a set of wooden steps that led up to the seven-story tower which collapsed in 1906. The area also contains the only known remnant of the original house that stood on the property when Mrs. Winchester purchased it in 1884.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



Mrs. Winchester found herself trapped here after the 1906 earthquake, and thought that the angry spirits had finally caught up with her. The servants couldn't find her for almost twenty-four hours because she slept in a different room each night. The earthquake had a profound effect on Mrs. Winchester. Although she continued to build, she never rebuilt or repaired any of the damaged portions of the mansion, leaving large sections of the house unfinished and abandoned. Even the new construction she undertook seems more reserved, amounting to little more than repetitive remodeling.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The rooms on the third floor belonged to the house servants. This floor seems very small and cramped, with narrower hallways and low ceilings than the first and second floors. This floor is also the most haunted, if you believe the stories of guides. One close friend of mine told me stories of hearing her name whispered while she worked on the third floor, and another refused to go to the third floor alone after she encountered a presence in the parlor.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.



The fourth floor is the tallest remaining portion of the mansion, consisting of a series of open air rooms that overlook the remaining acres of the estate. To reach the fourth floor, you'll follow the guide up another set of low Easy Riser stairs. This presents us with a mystery. There are Easy Riser steps from the first to the second floor, and from the third to the fourth floor, but none from the second to the third floor.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.


Mrs. Winchester did have guests, but we don't know if they ever set foot in the Mystery House. Teddy Roosevelt tried to visit. He stopped at the mansion on his famous tour of the west, but found that Mrs. Winchester's reclusive ways applied even to presidents. President Roosevelt requested a visit with Mrs. Winchester through a local town official and was similarly turned down.


Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
----



*

p.s. Hey. The blog is here, but I'm away from it and traveling for a few days. Please enjoy today's rerun, which could so easily be one of the official Halloween countdown posts, I don't know why I didn't think of it. Weird.