Ghosts of the San Jose Winchester Mystery House

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The Winchester Mystery House truly lives up to its name. The monstrous, 24,000-square-foot estate has secrets hiding around every corner. From stairwells that go nowhere to skylights in floors to a second-story door that opens to thin air, the massive mansion has shocked visitors for over a century.

Yet, the home’s owner, Sarah Winchester, didn’t care what society thought about her residence. She had a singular focus: to continually build a labyrinth of a home.

Because as long as she built, she stayed alive, and the more confusing she made her home, the harder it was for the spirits killed by her family fortune to find her.

Sarah successfully kept this up for 38 years before ultimately dying in 1922 in the palace she built for herself. The spirits that chased Sarah for so long have claimed her home for themselves ever since.

Introduction to Sarah Winchester
Architectural Marvel Or Haunted Labyrinth?
Symbolism Throughout The Home
The 1906 Earthquake
Spirits Of The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Hosue In Pop Culture
The House’s Most Famous Guest

What is the Story Behind the Winchester Mystery House?

The Winchester Mystery House owes its fame to its architect. The heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, Sarah Winchester continually added on to the house to confuse the spirits who haunted her — the victims of the Winchester guns.

While Sarah’s intentions have been questioned over the years, the end result is a fascinating piece of architecture that one can quite literally get lost in — alongside the spirits of the Winchester victims and even Sarah herself.

Introduction to Sarah Winchester

The Winchester Mystery Mansion would be nothing without its head architect and financier, Sarah Winchester.

Sarah Pardee was born to a wealthy family in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1839. She was incredibly well-educated for a woman, speaking five languages from a young age and becoming well-versed in literature, math, and science. Her petite frame of 4’10” and 95 pounds, along with her beauty, earned her the nickname of the “Belle of New Haven.”

The Pardee family was close with their neighbors, the Winchesters. When Sarah came of age, she married one of their sons, William Winchester, in 1862.

While Sarah was regarded as shy, she came out of her shell to connect with William, and the two had a very loving marriage.

The Personal Tragedies and Professional Triumphs of the Winchesters

Four years into their marriage, the young couple had a baby girl named Annie, after William’s recently deceased sister.

Tragically, their daughter was born with malasia, meaning she could not absorb nutrients. Annie died at six weeks old, and her death destroyed Sarah. William and Sarah did not have any more children.

Over the next handful of years, while Sarah became more reclusive, William worked with his father, Oliver, to shift their family business away from clothing and focus their efforts on a new business venture: rifles.

Benjamin Tyler Henry, the superintendent at the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, soon designed and patented the lever-action Henry repeating rifle, the predecessor to the Winchester rifles. With the revolutionary design, Winchester began to dominate the market, with everyone from Annie Oakley to Theodore Roosevelt branding Winchesters. The “gun that won the West” soon brought in an immense amount of money for the family.

Oliver died in 1880, which hit William and Sarah hard, as they were both close to the family patriarch. Then, just a year later, William succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 43.

With William’s death, Sarah was alone — and the heir to 50% of the Winchester company, which was an estimated $20 million at the time. (This would be approximately $167 million today.) She felt lost, so she sought guidance from the other side.

“Build to Keep the Spirits Away”

Shortly after her husband’s death in 1881, Sarah visited a medium in New Haven. The medium told her to start a new life out West by building a house. However, she warned that Sarah wouldn’t be going alone.

The medium said that the spirits of those who had died from the barrel of a Winchester rifle would haunt Sarah. The Winchester fortune was considered “blood money,” and Sarah would be the one to face the consequences. However, the medium gave Sarah an alternative: as long as Sarah continued adding on to her house, she’d keep the ghosts at bay. But, as soon as Sarah stopped building, she would die.

Sarah’s doctor also encouraged her to move out West for her health. She had rheumatoid arthritis, and the warm weather would hopefully lessen her pain. With all this in mind, Sarah purchased a 40-acre plot of land in 1886. On it was a two-story farmhouse with eight rooms. A few decades later, the original home would be unrecognizable.

Architectural Marvel or Haunted Labyrinth?

If you tour the Winchester House today, you’ll be gobsmacked to imagine the 24,000-square-foot estate as a simple two-story home. Today, the home has transformed into a small village. One of the first questions many people ask is, “How many rooms are in the Winchester Mansion?” Approximately 160 rooms are scattered throughout the mansion. Note that the word “approximately” is used because it’s believed there still may be rooms that haven’t been discovered yet.

Though a master plan was never found, thoughtful design was put into the “world’s longest home renovation,” which cost $5.5 million at the time. 10,000 windows bring in a great deal of light throughout much of the home. Additionally, there are 52 skylights, although not all are installed in the ceilings. This is but a taste of the estate’s unusual and sometimes truly bizarre construction choices.

A One-of-a-Kind Design

Remember, it’s widely believed that Sarah felt she had to continue building her home to keep the ghosts at bay. She may have also tried to “confuse” the spirits with her labyrinth of a house so that they couldn’t find her.

This seems to be the only reasonable explanation for the seemingly unhinged architectural decisions throughout the home, including 2,000 doors, which breaks down to 12.5 doors per room. So where do all these doors go? Well, sometimes nowhere. Some doors open up to a wall.

Perhaps the most famous door is on the second floor. If you step out of this door, you’ll fall 20-plus feet down to the grass below. There may never have been a balcony or steps leading down from this door.

The oddities continue throughout the home. There are 47 fireplaces but only 17 chimneys. One room has been named the “Hall of Fires,” as it has four fireplaces and three different air vents for hot air. It’s believed this room may have acted as a sauna.

There are 47 stairways throughout the home, some with steps just inches apart from each other. There are more unique rooms as well, like Sarah’s seance room, conservatory, and covered carriage room. Yet, despite all these rooms, there is only one shower.

Symbolism Throughout the Home

Several patterns are present throughout the home, the most notable being the number “13.” There are 13 bathrooms, and the 13th floor has 13 windows. There are 13 ceiling panels in the entrance hallway. Some closets have 13 hooks, while some staircases have 13 steps. Although we may not know what the number 13 represented for Sarah, we can see that it holds some kind of deeper meaning.

It’s also been argued that Sarah was part of a secret society, like the Freemasons. Some have said the iron gates of the house, along with the switchback stairs, were Masonic symbols. As Sarah was a particularly well-educated woman at the time, it’s possible she could have been introduced to the ways of the society.

Additionally, on a trip to France, it’s believed that Sarah likely visited one of the grandest cathedrals in the world, Chartres Cathedral, as she was keenly interested in architecture. The Knights Templar financed this building, and she may have met with some of them at this time.

Innovations from a Great Mind

While many of the elements of the Winchester Mystery House are regarded as strange, many of its impressive feats are overlooked. In fact, despite its quirks, Sarah Winchester was responsible for one of the most progressive homes in the Bay Area at the time.

Sarah didn’t simply stand by and watch her house being built; she was directly involved in all the architectural choices. It’s said she met with her foreman every morning to discuss the day’s building plans — and every night, she would run the next day’s plans past the spirits in her Seance Room. These designs included her instruction to install the pillars upside down, as she believed this would be more structurally sound. Frank Lloyd Wright also used this technique in one of his buildings.

The San Jose Winchester Mansion also had its own gas manufacturing plant and water tower, which provided hot and cold water throughout the house, including the laundry room, to make cleaning easier for staff. Sarah had a push-button design created to turn on the lights and designed her conservatory so that all the plants could be watered at once — with the drainage system running down to the kitchen sink to reuse water.

Additionally, the house was built on a floating foundation, which proved vital during the great earthquake of 1906.

The 1906 Earthquake

In 1906, the San Francisco area experienced one of the worst earthquakes the city had ever seen. On April 18, a massive magnitude 7.8 earthquake led to mass destruction and casualties. More than 3,000 people died, and 200,000 people, half of San Francisco’s population, were left homeless.

The Winchester Mystery House did not escape unscathed. Sarah was sleeping in the Daisy Bedroom, which was named for its decor, at the time of the quake. While she was unharmed, her precious building caved in on her — leading her construction team to need a crowbar to pry open the door once they were able to get to the bedroom.

While the mansion fared better than many buildings around it, several sections were severely damaged. A seven-story tower crumbled, and the north wing of the building was significantly impacted. Rather than repair this section of the home, Sarah chose to seal it off—including the Daisy Bedroom.

Today, guests can see the damaged Daisy Bedroom firsthand, and it seems Sarah’s ghost may not be thrilled with this fact.

The End of an Era

After the earthquake, Sarah was understandably disappointed. Part of her masterpiece had collapsed, and at the age of 67, her grand project suddenly seemed in jeopardy.

While Sarah moved out of her home for a while to be closer to her sister and niece, construction didn’t stop. In the end, Sarah was in her beloved home when she passed on September 5, 1922, from heart failure. After her death, the construction crew stopped midway through pounding nails — an abrupt end to the 38-year-long construction project.

Spirits of the Winchester Mystery House

After Sarah Winchester’s death, John and Mayme Brown bought the mansion, originally to create an amusement park. However, due to the public’s interest in the house, they soon began offering mansion tours in 1923. Ever since, there have been countless unexplainable experiences by guests and employees alike.

One of the most widely reported experiences involves a mustached ghost dubbed Clyde. He’s wearing 19th-century clothing and is often seen in the basement, working with a wheelbarrow, or in the ballroom, working on a fireplace. Several times, guests have commented to tour guides how they appreciated them hiring an actor to wear the old-timey outfits, only for the guide to tell them they haven’t hired any actors. A man closely resembling Clyde can be seen in the old photographs that adorn the walls.

Sarah herself roams the halls of the home she built. One tour guide was showing a group the Daisy Bedroom, and she could hear a loud sigh from the hall. Thinking it was a late guest, she went to check—only to see a small, shadowy figure moving away. People believe this was Sarah showing her disapproval of showcasing her traumatizing room.

Employees are particularly prone to experiencing strange phenomena. One employee was on a ladder when it felt like someone tapped his shoulder. He turned, only to find no one there. A few moments later, he said it felt like a hand was pushing against his back, almost as if to support him on the ladder. Very quickly, he packed up and left. Another couple who actually lived on the property said they were often woken up in the middle of the night to a haunted alarm clock that would ring for ages.

Footsteps are often heard throughout the property, and cabinet doors are known to open inexplicably. There always seem to be new stories of haunted encounters coming from the Winchester estate.

Ghost stories or embellished tales?

Despite the many accounts of eerie encounters, historians often point to the aspects of the home that can be explained away. For example, not all of Sarah’s construction may have been connected to circumventing the ghosts of the Winchester rifle.

Since Sarah had rheumatoid arthritis, her staircases with small steps may have been built to make ascending and descending the stairs easier. This also explains the reason behind the heat-filled Hall of Fires.

Historians have also tried to debunk some of Sarah’s reasoning for the hallways and doors that lead to nowhere. They point out that this may have resulted from the sections of the house that were closed off following the earthquake.

Additionally, Sarah’s reputation as being “peculiar” may have stemmed from sources other than her residence. Sarah was quite progressive, hiring staff from every race. Her head gardener, for example, was Japanese, and this was a time when there was a lot of anti-Asian sentiment. She also paid her workers well and paid for nearby housing so their families would be close.

She defied societal norms in other ways, financing a tuberculous hospital that treated patients from any background, regardless of their ability to pay.

In many ways, Sarah lived her life independently — and at the time, only men lived this way. Because of this, some of her well-to-do neighbors may have been keen to sully her reputation.

The Winchester House in Pop Culture

The Winchester Mystery House’s fame is not contained just to the tourists who visit its halls. The confounding mansion has worked its way into pop culture many times over the years. From inspiring a ride in a famous theme park to films dedicated to the house’s owner, the mansion often pops up in current-day lore.

The Mansion and the House of Mouse

One of the most notable inclusions in entertainment history has to be the Winchester House’s California connection: Disneyland. Back in 1969, there were plans to build a haunted house within the theme park’s boundaries. The attraction’s exterior was going to be spooky and creepy — like a dilapidated house about to fall apart.

However, Walt Disney nixed the plans, deciding he didn’t want a cheesy haunted house that people could see anywhere else. Shortly after, Disney visited the Winchester Mystery House, which sparked a new idea. Instead of a haunted house with broken windows and eaves falling off, they could build a home that looked expensive and regal from the outside. Then, when parkgoers ventured inside, they’d discover just how scary this posh-looking house truly was. In true Disney fashion, he reportedly said he’d “keep up the outside and let the ghosts take care of the interior.”

The ride was unveiled in 1969 and given the name “The Haunted Mansion.” The now-iconic attraction wasn’t just loosely inspired by the Winchester Mansion, though. The Imagineers, Disney engineers, directly included aspects from Sarah Winchester’s home. There’s the Seance Room, where parkgoers can see the illuminated crystal ball. There are stairs that never seem to end, making a circle. Then, there’s the repeated references to the number 13, just like in the San Jose estate.

Since the ride was introduced, it’s become one of the park’s most beloved attractions, sparking not one but two films. Disney lovers often quote the ride’s slogan: “The home of 999 ghosts-but there’s always room for one more.”

Winchester-Inspired Films and TV Shows

We have to think that Sarah Winchester would be a little flattered to have none other than Dame Helen Mirren portray her in the 2018 film Winchester. However, what she’d think of the film’s plot is anybody’s guess.

The thriller details the widow’s life as she lives in isolation and builds her labyrinth of hallways and rooms. The movie does take some liberty with the Winchester House story, as it says that crews worked on the house 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for decades. Additionally, the film takes the perspective that Sarah is building a “prison” for the countless ghosts who haunt her.

A television show that also pulled from the Winchester Mansion story was Rose Red, a 2002 miniseries written by Stephen King. The plot follows a professor investigating an old mansion and accidentally releasing a dark energy.

The House’s Most Famous Guest

Since the mansion was opened to the public over 100 years ago, many famous faces have walked its halls. One person who went there solely to debunk the haunted rumors of the building was none other than Harry Houdini.

Despite being a magician, Houdini famously liked to debunk spiritual sites or buildings. In 1924, he toured the house, ready to explain away the ghostly connections said to be present. He went to the rooms said to have the most otherworldly activity, like the seance room, and then… never publicly gave a report.

Houdini not openly speaking against the house is telling in itself. But it turns out he must have liked the house at some level, as he’s the one who suggested rebranding to call the place the “Winchester Mystery House.”

The Enduring Allure of the Winchester Mystery House

Over a century after the last nail was hammered, the Winchester Mystery House continues to excite and amaze curious visitors. Is it because of the scale of the property, which is hard to appreciate until you actually walk the halls? Perhaps the appeal lies in the mystery behind the house’s origin. Or maybe the possibility of ghostly Winchester rifle victims is what keeps people flocking to the site.

Whatever the reason, the Winchester Mystery House is as busy as ever, offering daily tours, special events around holidays, and even hosting weddings on the peculiar property.

No matter what reason Sarah Winchester had for building her neverending monument, it’s safe to say that she’d appreciate how much interest her masterpiece has brought to generations of people from around the world.

America’s Most Haunted

The United States is full of haunted locations that fascinate and strike fear in our hearts. Many have surface-level stories that are more complex than they appear. Continue reading our series on America’s Most Haunted Places if you enjoyed this in-depth look into the Winchester Mystery House.

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