The Winchester Mystery House is one of two “ghost houses” in the state of California as listed by the United States Department of Commerce. The Winchester Mystery House is famous for the story of Sarah Winchester, a widow and heir to the Winchester rifle fortune. Legend tells that the house was built by the ghosts of the victims killed by the Winchester Rifle, and Sarah, as a result of her fears (or the ghosts who visited her), accommodated and pleased them by giving them a place to dwell.
Sarah (Pardee) Winchester was the wife of William Winchester, the son of Oliver Fisher Winchester, the inventor of the Winchester repeating rifle. Sarah was born in 1839 and married in 1862 in her hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, but she left Connecticut after a series of tragic events destroyed her family life. Four years into their marriage, Sarah and William’s only daughter died after only living a few weeks. In 1881 William himself died of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah with a great grief and a great fortune ($20 million and an income of $1,000 a day—today the sum would amount to about $30,000 a day). The legend holds that Sarah, in despair, consulted a Boston medium, Adam Coons, who revealed to her that the tragedies of her family life were caused by the spirits of people killed by the Winchester rifle. Coons told her that the only way to escape the curses of the spirits would be to move away from New England and build a house to appease the spirits and give them a place to live. According to some accounts, Coons was able to speak with Sarah’s deceased husband, William. Through Coons, William instructed Sarah on how to best protect her life. As soon as the construction ended, Coons (interpreting the messages of Sarah’s husband) concluded that Sarah’s mission would be to appease the spirits so she could die in peace. Ms. Winchester moved to the Santa Clara Valley, California, in 1884 and found an eight-room home with forty-four acres of land just outside of San Jose. According to legend, when she saw this home, a voice (perhaps of deceased William) told her “This is it.” She began the construction right away and continued her architectural journey for the next thirty-six years. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake greatly reduced her mansion in size, yet that did not stop Sarah from continuing the work. When she died in 1922, the ghost mansion spanned more than six acres and had more than 160 rooms.
This photograph from 1938 depicts a woman sitting on a blind stairway in the Winchester Mystery House. The mansion has numerous bizarre features that were built at the request of its first owner, Sarah Winchester, who wanted to create a welcoming environment for ghosts. (Bettmann/Corbis)
Before Sarah died, construction on the house went on every day of the week. Sarah used only the best materials and fine woods, including teak, cherry, rosewood, and mahogany, and she employed the best craftsmen and carpenters she could find. Among the multiple fixtures of the house, there are more than 1,000 doors (one opens to a 20-foot drop), 40 staircases, 3 elevators, 47 fireplaces, more than 1,250 windows, 6 kitchens, and 13 bathrooms. Some rooms are odd-angled and have wings, some stairways lead to nowhere, some doors open onto walls, suggesting that perhaps Sarah did communicate with the spirits regularly. According to the legend, two rooms of the house were built specifically for the ghosts’ entertainment: a windowless séance room and the Blue Room, the secret chamber where Sarah would meet her supernatural visitors every midnight. She would dress in special robes and summon them by a tolling bell. At times Sarah would give them dinner parties, serving the ghosts four- or five-course meals prepared by the best chefs of Paris and Vienna. During the dinner parties, Sarah would have thirteen plates arranged.
In fact, the number thirteen has a special significance in the house. For example, Sarah’s thirteenth bathroom has thirteen windows and thirteen steps leading into it (these features, however, are common in many rooms and with most staircases), and thirteen panels in the wall next to the bathroom. Sarah’s famous spider web window has thirteen blue and amber stones; her greenhouse has thirteen cupolas; her séance room has thirteen clothes hooks (to accommodate the ghost guests); the ballroom, lit by a chandelier with thirteen gas jets, has a floor divided into sections each having thirteen squares; thirteen palm trees line the driveway. Thirteen was an important number even after her death. Sarah’s will contained thirteen parts, including instructions on how to care for the mansion so the ghosts would be welcomed (she left her house to a niece). Her house (now termed Winchester Mystery House) became a California Historical Landmark on May 13, 1974.
Since Sarah’s death, the house has turned into a tourist attraction. Even today some believe that the Winchester Mystery House is a structure built by ghosts. While most of the rooms are closed off, ghost-hunting tourists can visit the mansion at 525 South Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California. The house inspired many popular culture authors, including Stephen King, who scripted the Rose Red miniseries (broadcast on ABC in 2002) using the story and the actual house as a model for his creation. The house also encouraged numerous investigations among ghost seekers and scientists of the supernatural. One of the latest examinations in 2005, conducted by the members of the Atlantic Paranormal Society, resulted in a somewhat controversial report, and the existence of ghosts remains a question for further investigation, since no evidence proving the existence of ghosts has been conclusive.
Thomas Gosart and Ulia Popova
See also Amityville Hauntings; Haunted Houses; LaLaurie House; McPike Mansion
Further Reading
Blanco, Maria del Pilar, and Esther Peeren, eds. 2010. Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture. New York: Continuum Books.
Cohen, Daniel. 1984. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts. New York: Dodd, Mead.
Hawes, Jason, Grant Wilson, and Michael Friedman. 2007. “The Winchester Mystery.” Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from the Atlantic Paranormal Society, 225–229. New York: Pocket Books.
Rambo, Ralph. 1967. Lady of Mystery. San Jose, CA: The Rosicrucian Press.
Riccio, Dolores, and John Bingham. 1989. Haunted Houses USA. New York: Pocket Books.