Today I will take you on a new trip, we will go quite far away. Our destination is California, San Jose. We will see and admire a beautiful house that is quite huge and built without a master plan. First, we should take a journey in time to see why and when this house was constructed. Grab my hand, and let’s go. We are in the year 1884, in San Jose, California, we will go and visit Sarah Winchester. She is the widow of William Wirt Winchester. She will show us her treasure, legacy.
After her husband and her daughter passed away, she felt kinda lonely. She missed her loved ones and went to spiritism sessions (spiritism was something at fashion at those times). At this spiritism session, the spirits told her to build a house for every soul that was killed by a riffle. I forgot to tell you that her husband had a riffles company that sold many guns. Unfortunately, many people were killed by those guns.
So Sarah built this house in which we will go in, as you can see this house is huge but also a bit odd. Has 7 floors, a lot of rooms, but just one toilet. You might think there are more, but no, those are not toilets, at least not for us humans. They are just decoys for spirits.
Look, a stair that leads nowhere, but this one is not the only one. Thereat are at least a few like this and also doors that lead nowhere.
Sarah will tell you that she actually designed the house by herself with a little bit of help from spirits as they guided her to recreate the room where they were killed.
Don’t be too harsh on Sarah. She might be one of the richest women, but she had a rough life as her daughter died young and then later her beloved husband died too.
Have I told you that workers worked day and night at the house?
I can tell you that this house is full of lost souls. Some are pretty good ones, but others are not that nice, so some are locked in the room that was created for them and forced to stay there by 13 nails that sealed the room.
Unfortunately, today the house is shorter with 3 floors, that’s because of the earthquake from 1906, what made it not crash was the floating foundation that the house has.
Now let’s go for a walk in the house, as the place is so huge we might get lost or even worse, meet an angry soul that might want to get out, so let’s be careful where we step…
Imagine that the house had 161 rooms, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 47 fireplaces, more than 10000 glass panels, 17 chimneys, two basements, 3 elevators, 1 toilet.
Sarah, as she might tell you, she used to change her bedroom every night.
Now I will take to some of the most beautiful rooms from the mansion. These rooms cost her a fortune, and now they are worth even more. Some windows were designed by Tiffany himself.
Let’s go and visit these rooms to see with your eyes how beautiful they are. We will first go and visit the 25000$ storeroom. This room has artisan windows, these windows cost a fortune around 25000$, and they are worth about millions now.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/
The next stop is the room called the Seance room, as you can see, which is in the center of the house, and here was where the spirits came and gave guidance to Sarah on how to build the house. Maybe we can meet one of the spirits here, so let’s have all ears on. I can only hope it is a friendly spirit, or we should have to prepare 13 nails and a hammer and get an empty room to lock them.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/#gallery-seance-1
Before any spirit comes, let’s go and visit the Daisy Room. As you can guess, this room has a daisy motif highlighted in its stained glass. In this room, Sarah was trapped during the earthquake in 1906.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/#gallery-daisy-1
Now we will go to Sarah’s bedroom or the place where she died in 1922. You can almost feel her here.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/#gallery-bedroom
Another beautiful room is the grand ballroom. This room was built almost entirely without nails. The room cost was about 9000$ at that time ( around 125,600 in today’s currency ), really beautiful as you can see.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/#gallery-grandballroom-1
The next stop is the Cristal Bedroom – this room had mica crystals encrusted on the walls. This mineral reflects the light and makes the wall sparkle when the lights are on, a natural beauty as you can see.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/explore-the-house/curiosities/#gallery-crystalbedroom-1
Some of the windows had a spider web motif. Some windows were designed by Tiffany himself, as I have told you before.
The construction of the house stopped in 1922 when Sarah died. All her possession went to her niece and her secretary. Her niece kept some of the things she liked. The rest were sold at an auction.
The house was sold at an auction. It was bought by a local investor and leased for 10 years to John and Mayme Brown. Later they purchased the house and transformed it into a museum. Today the place can be visited as we did. Here you can take a virtual tour of the house to know what to expect when you are really there. Be careful some spirits enjoy your presence some no. I hope you enjoyed my story. I really loved the house after I saw the movie about Sarah, you should have a look, you might enjoy it.
https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/select-your-tour/mansion-tour/