Costumes > Articles > The History of the Winchester Mystery House

The History of the Winchester Mystery House

Costume Discounters

Located in San Jose, California, the Winchester Mystery House haunted its former occupant and now spooks visiting tourists. The Winchester mansion is a marvelous maze of Victorian architecture with miles of twisting hallways and secret passages. Sarah L. Winchester, a widow who lost her daughter Annie in 1866 and then her husband William designed the house in 1881. Winchester mansion was under construction for a continuous 38 years, after seeking advice from a medium.

According to popular belief, Sarah Winchester consulted a medium, now commonly known as the “Boston Medium”. The spiritualist told Mrs. Winchester that she believed the Winchester family was cursed because the guns the family had made had taken thousands of lives. She then said that the spirits sought vengeance on the family so she must leave her home in New Haven and travel west. Mrs. Winchester was told to build a house for herself and for the spirits who had died due to her family’s mistake, the Winchester rifles. The medium said that if she continued to build, she would live forever, but if she stopped she would die. She immediately hired carpenters to build the house, which started as a simple eight room home. Every night for the 38 years of construction, it was said that Sarah Winchester would hold a séance to commune with the spirits in the house, seeking advice and counsel from the ghosts she was working to appease. During these encounters, Sarah would write messages and plans for the house, all of which were given to her by the dead. These nightly sessions were held in the center of the house in what is now referred to as the Blue Room. Over the years, the home grew into a seven story mansion with more than 161 acres of land and contains 161 rooms, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces with only 17 chimneys, 2,000 doors including the door to nowhere, 47 stairways, 6 kitchens, and 13 bathrooms each with a window in the door.

With more than $20,000,000 worth of inheritance received after the death of her husband, and the money she received daily from her shares of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company which equaled about $1,000 daily ($22,000 daily in modern money), Mrs. Winchester’s funds were ultimately unlimited. The overall cost of construction on the house came to over $5,000,000, $70,000,000 by today's standards.

There are many stories and rumors surrounding Sarah Winchester after she moved to California. She was a very private individual, who apparently wore a veil over her face at all times, and even fired a servant who saw her without her veil. One of her first jobs given to her gardeners was the planting of large hedges surrounding the house for privacy. However, she also was a very generous employer, paid those working for her double what the going rate of the day was and donated large sums of money anonymously to local charities. Every night at midnight and again at 2am a bell could be heard ringing from the mansion.

On September 5, 1922, Mrs. Winchester passed away in her sleep from heart failure. She was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery of New Haven next to her husband. Upon news of her death work immediately ceased on the house, working leaving nails only half driven into walls. The final house contains a large number of architectural oddities, including staircases that go nowhere, doors that go nowhere, stairways with steps no more than 2 inches high, and secret passageways inside the walls. As if the house itself wasn't unique enough some of the doors and windows are inlaid with jewels, silver, and bronze. One of the most impressive rooms of the mansion is the Grand Ballroom. This room alone cost $9,000 to build and not a single nail was used. After the Great San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake of 1906, which severely damaged several features of the mansion, the ballroom was sealed off. The earthquake trapped Sarah in her Daisy Bedroom and servants spent several hours locating and rescuing her from the room. Sarah viewed the earthquake as a warning from the spirits that too much time and money was being spent on just the front section of the house, so thirty rooms in the front of the mansion were sealed, including the Daisy Bedroom.

Today the Winchester Mystery House stands as a tourist attraction at 525 South Winchester Blvd where guided tours of curious individuals are welcomed. The mansion became known as the “house built by spirits” where awkward building concepts took place to deliberately ‘confuse the spirits’. Architectural oddities in the home such as staircases that lead to nowhere, steps that descended seven steps and then raised eleven, and columns that were installed upside down. Time and money was limitless, there were no deadlines to meet, and so the construction went on until the mansion occupied over 600 rooms. Eccentric additions, such as the Grand Ballroom, cost over $9,000 to complete and was built almost entirely without the use of nails. We may never know if the house was actually built to accommodate the vengeful spirits but what is unavoidable is that Mrs. Winchester believed her life was affected by these lost souls and she tried her best to befriend the spirits. For nearly 38 years, the hammering, sawing and round the clock construction never ceased until the news came that Mrs. Winchester had passed. Carpenters left the home with nails still half hammered into the walls at news of her passing.

There is no doubt that the mysteries of the Winchester mansion may never be truly validated as family members and friends have never stepped forward to claim the truth. Many people have visited and toured the house over the years, including Harry Houdini in an attempt to reach out to the spirits of the house if only to prove the stories as fraudulent. No one knows for sure what Houdini discovered during his visit to the mansion.

Tourists can decide for themselves why the mansion was built and what Mrs. Winchesters true intentions of the impressive, yet bizarre house were.



Article written by

Santa Suits Easter Costumes Kids Costumes Plus Size Costumes Girls Halloween Costumes Teen Costumes
Womens Halloween Costumes Adult Costumes Toddler Costumes Sexy Halloween Costumes Boys Halloween Costumes Pirate Costumes
© CostumeDiscounters.com - Discount Halloween Costumes!