One of the most outlandish structures in the entire world has to be the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Built by Sarah Winchester, wife of William Wirt Winchester--creator of the Winchester Rifle--this home is a veritable labyrinth of lunacy. There are many insane and inexplicable features of the house, such as trapdoors in floors, doors that lead to nowhere, and secret passages hidden in the walls of twisting hallways.
The house was built on a floating foundation which allows it to shift freely, giving it some reinforcement when earthquakes strike. The sprawling architectural jigsaw puzzle has about 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces and only 17 chimneys, three elevators, two basements, and over 10,000 panes of glass.
A bird's-eye-view of this modern day madhouse.
The Winchester fortune was massive. After William Winchester died from tuberculosis in 1881, Sarah inherited more than $20-million, which, back then, would have been like receiving $23,000 a day today. This excessive wealth allowed for Sarah to begin building the Victorian Nightmare in 1884 and keep it going until her own death in 1922. Sarah spared no expense during the house's construction. There were numerous luxuries contained therein that were not commonly found in homes back then: indoor plumbing and toilets, push-button gas lights, forced air heating, and her own hot-water shower.
The décor of the home was nothing short of extravagant. Many of the windows were made by Tiffany's and valued at about $1500 a piece; a lot of the doors were worth twice that as they were inlaid with German bronze and silver; there were even Swiss molded bathtubs throughout the home as well--and all of this is really just a very minute collection of the opulence contained in the wacky Winchester warren.
Gorgeous insanity.
Splendor within the Winchester House.
Another outrageous design inside Sarah's opulent opus.
But, why did Sarah Winchester create such a zany home? And why did she let it go on for the rest of her life, like Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour? Well, the popular answer to that is that she was haunted by the spirits of many people who were shot down by a Winchester Rifle. These ghosts supposedly haunted her till the end of her days, and the only way to keep them from driving her mad was to grant their request, which was to build a home that was never finished. So she did.
Some people believe Hell is repetition, and if that is true, then perhaps this diabolical demand was designed as atonement for the Winchester widow.
But, building the house wasn't enough and the angry spirits kept haunting Sarah. This is why the layout of the house became so bizarre: Mrs. Winchester used the wiles of her wits to stay on constant run from the ghosts, and this backwards manor was her armor against their otherworldly onslaught. When being chased by the specters, she could duck into a secret passage and erase her path. She often vanished into mysterious rooms, through small hallways, and across oblong, awkward staircases, tricking the trackers off her trail. It was even alleged that a room on the upper-floor, surrounded by doors with only one leading to a true exit, was the séance room where she would go to converse with the unwelcomed inhabitants of her home. It seems that Sarah Winchester remained in a never-ending struggle against these poltergeists until the day of her death.
The Séance Room at the Winchester house where Sarah allegedly tried to speak to the entities in her home.
Through the years, many employees of and visitors to the Mystery House have reported haunts and strange activity taking place. A lot of them are very mundane, garden variety incidents, such as turning doorknobs, footsteps, whispers, and lights turning on and off, all of which could be attributed to the usual explanation of the "house being old." But, there are some stories that come from between the walls that are a bit more specific.
A former caretaker claimed to have heard very specific footsteps clopping about the place, accompanied by long, drawn, heavy breathing while he was presumably alone in the building. One night, he heard what sounded like a screw being turned, followed by the rattling of something small hitting the floor. When he looked around, he found nothing strange. The caretaker did have a friend who caught the image of an unknown man in workman's overalls in a photograph he took at Winchester. Maybe it's the spirit of one of the workers who toiled to create this marvel.
One man had trouble getting the exterior doors to remain locked. When he would close up the house at night, he would do his rounds and check all the doors, finding many of them to be unlocked even though he remembered locking them before. Upon returning to the front doors, he would find them unlocked as well. Sometimes, he would go back in to check around for intruders, but would find nothing peculiar. When he would start checking doors again, many that he had just locked would be unlocked once more and he'd have to start all over again.
The man later had the same problem with lights coming back on in the house. After he would shut off the lights, he would be getting ready to get in his car, look up, and see all the lights on the third floor blazing. So, he'd go in, turn them off, and as he was passing back through the house to leave, he would find other lights on that had been previously off. Sometimes, he'd get outside and see the lights back on, other times he would not. Sometimes he would go back in and turn them off, other times he would not.
People have also heard voices talking to them from dark corners; the hayloft is supposed to be haunted by some shadow that roams about, trying to carry on conversations with people. The aroma of an assortment of foods has been smelled when nothing is cooking. People have seen apparitions walking through walls, opening doors and entering rooms, and just randomly hanging about the hallways. There are many other reported haunts dating back thirty years or more.
In recent years, it has been claimed that these stories were all made up by people working for the Winchester Mystery House in order to sell tickets for tours and gain publicity, and that nothing paranormal ever took place in the home, nor were any ghosts ever hounding the matriarch of the Winchester empire. The explanation comes from someone who has done a lot of research into the home and its history. They have deduced that due to the Winchesters' tie to Freemasonry and her Rosicrucian beliefs, the home is simply a giant canvas of symbolism that pays homage to the Masons and Rosicrucian ways. Though this reasoning is ultimately conjecture, there's no denying the peculiar design of the home and the décor do suggest some Masonic influences.
There is a lot to the Winchester Mystery House, and though this particular blog may seem a bit lengthy, it still does not come close to covering the complexity of one of the world's most fascinating homes. Whether or not ghosts haunt the house, or whether angry spirits drove Sarah Winchester to near madness, or if she was simply showing her devotion to her spiritualism, one cannot deny that the Winchester House definitely emanates a singular and awe-inspiring aura.
William and Sarah Winchester
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