You’re Making Me Dizzy

Jan 23, 2023

If you’re into houses that have staircases to nowhere, doors with solid wall behind them, hallways that abruptly lead to dead ends, and that generally make no sense whatsoever, you may find yourself at the 24,000-square-foot Winchester House in San Jose, California, just south of San Francisco. 🌴 Standing on the front walkway today, embedded with its bright, babbling fountains and outlined by long rows of manicured shrubs, you would never believe that the 160-bedroom house was once a small unfinished farmhouse. Or that it’s widely regarded as one of the most haunted homes in the world. Construction on the farmhouse began in 1885, when a young widow, convinced she was being stalked by vengeful spirits, began building sans blueprints or an architect. The project would go on continuously around the clock, night and day, seven days a week, for the next 38 years.

Sarah Winchester

Sarah Lockwood Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 New Haven, Connecticut. She was kind, intelligent and privileged, attended the best schools and spoke four languages. In 1862, early into the Civil War, the four-foot-ten, 23-year-old Sarah married the soft-spoken heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, William Wirt Winchester. While the couple had a comfortable marriage, it wouldn’t be long before sorrow filled their lives. Their only child, Annie, born in 1866, failed to thrive and sadly died at only six weeks old. Tragedy struck again for Sarah fifteen years later when her husband William would suddenly succumb to tuberculosis. Over the next few years, Sarah would also lose her mother, her father-in-law, and her eldest sister. It is said that given her loss and grief, Sarah traveled to Boston to seek out a medium named Adam Coons, in hopes of communicating with her lost loved ones.

Instead of comfort though, Coons would issue her a horrific revelation and warning: Sarah and her family, Coons reportedly told her, were being stalked by the ghosts of those killed by the munitions the Winchester family had produced through their “blood business” 😧 . He counseled her that her only hope of evading these vengeful spirits would be to move west and build a house fashioned to confuse the ghosts, and to never stop building; lest she would be overtaken by the angry spirits like her fallen family members had before her.

…. And I don’t know about you, but I’m never going to get my palm read again. ✋ 🚫

Construction of the Mystery House

Sarah Winchester did indeed move out west, at the advice of the medium Adam Coons, and purchased a small, unfinished farmhouse with eight rooms and two stories in the Santa Clara Valley. Sarah had inherited about $20 million dollars from her husband when he died (about $500 million in today’s value), along with 50% stock in the Winchester Repeating Arms company, which gave her a daily allowance of about $1,000 per day (valued at $29,000 in today’s currency).

Expansion on the house began almost immediately. Sarah initially hired two architects to head her project, but ultimately dismissed them, overseeing the project herself instead. The construction began, without conclusive direction or blueprints, and would continue for almost 40 years non-stop. Many of the rooms were inspired by the world fairs, which were highly popular at the time. Many features also revolved around the number thirteen, which Sarah is said to have been obsessed with. Side note: thirteen is my lucky number… 😬🫣

Sarah would regularly build a section of the home, abandon it if it wasn’t going according to how she imagined, tear it down and rebuild it. The newspaper at the time reported that one of the towers she built, which contained seven stories, was built and rebuilt sixteen times. This tendency to build and rebuild also resulted in unfunctional windows and doors that were never removed: hence, the windows and doors to nowhere.

Ultimately, the house “organically” grew (I don’t know about you, but this makes me think of it growing like a plant…. what a creepy visual… 🌱 ) into a seven-story mansion, with high-ceilings, indoor gardens, high towers, pointed spires and beautiful stained glass windows. The home was intricately laid out in maple wood, teak and mahogany, which together wove breath-taking patterns throughout. French paintings, German chandeliers, decorated glass from Austria and furniture from Asia decorated the 500-room home. The mansion included highly-coveted plumbing, hot running water, gas lighting, electricity and forced hot air heating. Complete with an intercom for the servants, known as an annunciator, no one could claim the house wasn’t lavish. It’s the other features, however, that have given it its renown and the title of the Mystery House.

Strange Rooms and Features   

The Winchester House rose to seven stories high at its peak, with rooms being built upon rooms, which caused windows to be embedded into the floors, to be completely closed off, or to peer over into other interior rooms. The staircases each have different risers, which cause them to appear warped and distorted. In addition, several of the modifications within the home appear to have been constructed with no rhyme or reason. Staircases ascend multiple floors and then suddenly end into closed-off ceiling; because of failed construction sections, doors open to solid wall; hallways twist and turn and then suddenly end in dead-ends. All of which give the house its labyrinth-like layout.  😵‍💫

Next to obsessed with the initial reading from Adam Coons, the medium from Boston, Sarah would continuously seek the guidance of spiritualists in hopes of evading the malevolent spirits that she believed haunted her. Many of the features she added or altered were in effort to confuse or trap these specters. Out of thirteen bathrooms in the home, only one actually worked. She also constructed 160 bedrooms and would sleep in a different one each night, moving between the rooms through secret doors and passageways. This part sounds seriously cool, by the way. 🚪

One entrance to the home is through the giant double doors of the covered Carriage Room, which Sarah constructed as a way of getting in and out of her buggy without getting wet from the rain. The room also boasts a door that opens to solid wall and a door that is too small for a person to walk through.

Another room, notably narrow and small in size, is known as the 🔥 Hall of Fires 🔥 and includes three hot air vents and four fireplaces.

One of the conservatories in the home has windows on every wall, including on the ceiling and the floor.

Near the Carriage Room, there is a staircase that rises from the first floor to the second floor with seven turns and forty-four shallow steps. (Yes, you read that right… between the first and second floor.)

Sarah was infatuated with stained glass and peppered the home with Tiffany & Co. stained-glass windows.

A bell tower stands on the grounds and is said to summon spirits. One source says that on Friday the 13th the bell is rung 13 times on the 13th hour. 🔔 Sarah was obsessed with the number thirteen, resulting in thirteen bathrooms and thirteen windows in many of the rooms, among other representations of the number.

When Sarah was unable to sleep at night, she would play a grand organ, located in the grand ballroom, which caused neighbors to hear ghostly music playing in the middle of the night.

An earthquake in the early 1900’s caused significant damage to the home, which resulted in the top three stories being removed due to hazardous conditions. These floors were never rebuilt.

Today, the Winchester House has impressive gardens and fountains, a wrap-around porch and intricate outdoor columns, along with 4 floors, 3 dining rooms, 6 kitchens, 13 bathrooms, 57 skylights, 160 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 10,000 windows and 2,000 doors.

It also has a dedicated “séance room”. 🫣 Whew, I just got chills.

Sarah Winchester died at the age of 82 in her master bedroom in the September of 1922 from heart failure.

Hauntings

Since Sarah’s death in 1922, guests have reportedly heard footsteps in her master bedroom, felt icy chills throughout the home, seen doorknobs turn by themselves and have suffered temporary loss in vision. People have reportedly seen orbs floating throughout the stables and the ghost of a small, bushy-haired woman (said to be the ghost of Sarah Winchester) in the gardens and peering through the upper story windows. People have also felt unseen hands move across their heads and heard voices behind them when no one was around. A couple that worked on the house overnight in 1983 also reported the house alarm to go off repeatedly for no apparent reason and their guard dog to shy away from certain hallways.  In addition to nickname of “the Mystery House”, the mansion has also been coined “the House of 10,000 Ghosts.”    

Pop Culture

The Winchester House was used as the Cyrus Zorba home in the 1960’s version of the movie 13 Ghosts.

The Winchester House is the inspiration for Disney’s The Haunted Mansion ride, which first opened in Disney Land, California in 1969.

The 2001 Stephen King miniseries Rose Red was inspired by the Winchester House.

Helen Mirren starred as Sarah Winchester in the 2018 film, Winchester.

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And that is what we call a house of a different color! Oh, wait, it’s “horse”, isn’t it. Ah well. Whatever, it works.

Enjoy the rest of your day, my dear friends, and may your staircases and hallways always bring you to where you want to go. And not to random dead ends. 🙃

[🧡DT]