Winchester Mystery House

The story goes that when a grieving Sarah L. Winchester, widow to legendary rifle industrialist, William Winchester, met with a medium in 1884 she was told the following:

• Thousands of people have died as a result of her husband’s creations.
• Their spirits are angry and seeking vengeance
• To appease them she must build a home for herself and the spirits, however there was one catch: she could never stop building the house or she would die.

Hence began what would eventually become a $5.5 million dollar (nearly $70 million by today’s standards) construction project that went on for 38 years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until Sarah’s death on September 5, 1922 at the age of 82.

But Sarah was not only trying to appease the spirits, she was also bent on confusing them. Under her orders, carpenters built stairways that led nowhere, doors that open into solid walls or in one case a 10-foot drop to the ground below. She slept in a different room every night and spent her time spying on servants from various hidey-holes around the mansion.

Today the Winchester Mystery House offers three different tours as well as The Winchester Firearms Museum. The Mansion Tour offers up 110 of the 160-room architectural behemoth for viewing.  Also available is The Garden Tour; magnificent Victorian gardens restored to the days when Sarah Winchester’s full time staff of eight gardeners tended its beauty.

For those who like to dig a little deeper, The Winchester Mystery House offers a special Behind-the-Scenes, hard hats only tour, which takes guests “into areas which had been unexplored for over 75 years.” For safety reasons these tours are limited to guests ten years of age and older.

Be sure to check out the famous Winchester Firearms Museum, home to one of the largest collections of  Winchester Rifles on the West Coast, the “Gun that Won the West,” as well as many rare antiques manufactured by Winchester Products Company, a subsidiary to the legendary arms manufacturer.

For tour hours, pricing and special packages, visit their website at: http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Photo: Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA.