Winchester Mystery House

This fading postcard view hints at the eccentric glory of the Winchester House in San Jose, California before its outline was forever changed by the great quake of '06. Overall, there is a curious lack of design: one staircase leads to the ceiling; many stairsteps are a mere 2 inches in height; doors open into blank walls and windows look from one room into the next; a preoccupation with daisies, spiders, and the number 13; all created to pacify the angry spirits of those who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle.

In 1862 young Sarah Pardee married William Winchester, whose thriving company had given the Civil War its first repeating rifle. Their only child, Annie, died in 1866 at the age of six months after which Sarah mentally withdrew for nearly a decade. Only a few short years after regaining her health she lost her husband to tuberculosis in 1881. Devastated, Sarah visited a medium who told her the deaths of her family had been caused by vengeful ghosts whose earthly forms were killed by her husband's rifles. To save her own life, she must move west and build them a house without end. If work on the house were ever to cease, Sarah would die.

Her enormous inheritance yielded an income of $1,000 a day and in 1884 she moved to California. She bought land and a small farm house, and engaged carpenters to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without benefit of plans or blueprints. Sarah had her own "seance room" where she went to receive instructions for the house which resulted in many oddities including diminuitive doorways just big enough for Sarah's 4'10" to pass through.The end result was a sprawling, haphazardly built, Victorian mansion with 160 rooms, 40 staircases, 47 fireplaces, push-button gas lights, 3 Otis elevators, Tiffany glass, 17 chimneys, and 10,000 windows.

At the time of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Winchester House was seven stories high. The quake's violence extended to San Jose, where Sarah was trapped in a bedroom. She informed the workmen that the quake had been the result of the ghosts' anger that the house was nearing completion. She boarded up 30 rooms and shut off access to the new front doors in an attempt to ensure the work would never be finished.

Sarah died peacefully in her sleep in 1922, at which time construction stopped. Visitors can still see where workmen stopped hammering nails and walked away. Her will provided for all of her servants and gardners, while most of the furniture was auctioned off. Later the mansion was restored and opened to the public.

The Winchester Mystery House is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd, San Jose, CA 95128.