Part 45 here
We weren’t going to visit that place. In fact, we even didn’t know about its existence. But after breakfast, while walking by the tourist attractions booth in the hotel – you know, almost everywhere you can find that – what to do in California and so on – I noticed a advertisement of Winchester Mystery House. Well, we thought, we need to be in San Francisco today evening, but we still have plenty of time to go to San Jose. And why not, it should be pretty cool, according to that advertisement. Doors and stairs leading to nowhere, windows looking to the adjusting room and so on.
Wikimedia Commons. Winchester Mystery House
The driving to San Jose went fast. I was busy with that new smartphone game, Pokemon Go. I tried to play it, in the beginning it was even fun but pretty soon I realized how repetitive it is. You see a pokemon, throw a ball and catch (or not catch) a creature. It is registered in the collection, and you can make it stronger by feeding with candies. The more pokemons of that type you catch the more candies you get. Also you can sell weak pokemons for candies too. And all started again – you notice it, throw a ball… Me and my daughter fell in love with the pokemons of certain type which wasn’t very common in the areas where we played and it was very frustrating to finally saw desirable creature in the list but don’t have an ability to catch it. Also a lot of bugs I experienced were pretty annoying . Probably it was my phone, because it is old now. But anyway, the overall experience from the game became negative.
After arriving to the Mystery House we bought a tour ticket and waited a little bit. Soon the tour started and we went inside. As usual, we were not allowed to make a pictures inside, so all photos are from the internet.
Wikimedia Commons. Corner of the house
The owner of that Mystery Mansion was Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. Her life wasn’t very easy – she lost her parents, then her husband’s parents, an infant child and her husband himself. She never got over that cruel stroke of fate and was in the mourning for the rest of her life. After talking with one Boston medium, she believed that souls of all who died from the Winchester riffle are trying to take revenge, so the only way to confuse that spirits is to live in an unfinished house.
Wikimedia Commons. Door to nowhere
That’s why Sarah sold her house in New Haven and moved to southern California. She bought an unfinished farm house with 10 rooms and hired several teams of construction workers. Being a very rich widow, she could afford that, so the work started immediately and continued around the clock for thirty eight years. Started with several acres of land, Sarah continued to buy land around her house, ended up with owning of several hundreds acres of land. She didn’t demolish the already existing buildings, instead they were included in her growing mansion. For instance, in one room we noticed an inclined floor and were explained that it was a barn once upon a time. In other room we were pointed to the weird tilted walls – it is appeared to be a mill long time ago.
Sarah was a very petite woman, only 4′ tall. So in the many places of the house we saw funny little doors near the regular size doors that were decorated all the same. During construction there were no architect involved. Sara herself made a plan for the room, where it should be located and all the decorations too. Only after that workers implement her plans into life. Close to her end, she suffered from arthritis and could lift her feet up several inches. That’s why some of the stairs in the house were ripped off and rebuild again so she could wander around her house. If the regular stairs forced us to make, let’s say, ten steps, when we used Sarah’s stairs we made around 160 tiny steps, and stairs led us in a zigzag.
Craig Gassner Flickr. Sara Winchester’s door
There were no building plan at all. Sarah hadn’t left any records about her ideas, maybe because she wanted to confuse spirits and didn’t want them to know her plans. Or maybe she didn’t have the plans because she made the house only one room at a time. So when the museum was established, the law required them to install a sprinkler system in case of a fire. That took a whole year, imagine doing that in 160-room mansion. By the way, the museum workers are still not sure that they found all the secrets of that house.
Sarah Winchester took care about her servants. The salary she paid was higher compared to others, and she used modern technology for improvements. For example, kitchen and laundry had pipes with cold and hot water, so there was no need to warm water at the stove top, which is it happened almost everywhere those days. Can you imagine that in 1900s? When any of her workers got married she built a house for the married couple. Rumor has it that many workers loved Sarah and her house so much their ghosts even stayed here after they died.
However Sarah made some weird things to confuse evil spirits. She installed columns upside down and made doors and stairs leading to nowhere. Beware opening certain doors – they have no floor behind them and are located high above the ground. Looking through some windows you will not see the outside, instead there will be another room. Also, Sarah had a secret room in the middle of her house. It had one entrance and three exits but I wouldn’t advise to use a couple of them – for example, one leads to the kitchen, that located just below that secret room. So by stepping out of that door you could find yourself in the kitchen sink. Sometimes Sarah came into that room, opened that particular door and could hear all the gossiping.
After her husband died, Sarah became inheritor of all Winchester’s family money and stocks in the company. So she could afford to buy the things all around the world. She loved stained glass windows by Tiffany Company and installed them in many places of her house. One of that windows was ridiculously expensive at that time and cost $1,500. However Sarah’s salary was about $1,000 per day, so she needed to save salary from two days to get it. When sunlight strikes the prismatic crystals a rainbow is cast across the room, but we weren’t lucky enough to see it. Actually, no one ever saw that because during the installation two major mistakes were made. First, the window was installed in the northern wall and there is no direct sunlight there. Second (or maybe it is just a result of the first mistake?) there is another room behind that wall. And, to makes things even more funnier, right near that window called “The most expensive window” located another one, which is called “the cheapest window”. It cost only 2 dollars, with the installation, and you can’t see anything through it because there is a wall behind it.
Horace Ko Flickr. Stained glass windows, Tiffany Co
Craig Gassner Flickr. The most expensive window
Sarah loved number 13 and used it in many places. One room has 13 windows, in other we saw 13 coat hooks. The sink has 13 drainage holes and so on. Also she used spiderwebs a lot in the decoration.
Jessie Flickr. Stained glass window designed by Sarah Winchester
Craig Gassner Flickr. Chandelier with 13 candles
We were told about one staircase that, if you turn to the right and make 6 steps, will led you to the second level. Try to use left staircase, make 8 steps, and voila – you are on the third floor!
Craig Gassner Flickr. Stairs that led to the different levels
Originally Winchester Mystery House was seven stories high, but now has only four stories. During one scary night in 1906 an earthquake happened that destroyed half of the San Francisco and part of the mansion too. Sarah barely survived that night, because fireplace in her room collapsed causing the walls to crush and blocked her way out. She waited half of the next day for her servants to find and rescue her. Sarah came from the east coast where there weren’t any big earthquakes, so she considered it as a warning from the spirits that her house was nearing completion. After having the structural damage repaired, she immediately ordered the front thirty rooms – including the Daisy Bedroom, Grand Ballroom, and the beautiful front doors – sealed up – that way part of the house will never be finished. The heavy, ornate front doors, which had been installed just prior to the earthquake, had only been used by three people – Mrs. Winchester and the two carpenters who installed them.
Andrés Álvarez Iglesias Flickr. The mansion before the 1906 earthquake
In 1922, at age 83, Sarah died from a heart attack during her sleep. All construction was stopped the next day. In her will Sarah bequeathed her possessions to her niece, whom she loved. To help you imagine how much furniture was in that house, I would just say that trucks with furniture departed daily during several weeks. The niece kept some of the furniture and all the rest was sold on the private auction. And there are no records left, so it is almost impossible to find the original furniture.
Craig Gassner Flickr. Window in the floor
It was very interesting to walk inside, but sometimes I felt strange and even had a headache because structures weren’t logical at all, the height of the ceilings or level of the floors were changed constantly from room to room. It was weird to see the windows located on the floor, but at the same time the place is beautiful. If you ever have a chance to be in San Jose, kindly take my advice and visit that place – you will not be disappointed!
To be continued