The Winchester Mystery House is now a major tourist attraction but during the thirty-eight-year construction this house was something much stranger with spirits of the dead.
Sarah Winchester, née Pardee, was the wife of William Wirt Winchester who was heir to the Winchester Rifle Fortune. When her father-in-law Oliver Fisher Winchester, Manufacturer of the Winchester Repeating rifle, died in 1880 followed by the death of his son William, Sarah Winchester was left a very rich widow. By this time, she was in a tragic state of mind fuelled with depression after the death of her infant daughter, Annie. To find out answers, Sarah turned to a medium, a person who claimed they can communicate with spirits of the dead.
According to a legend she was told that her tragic ill luck was due to the unwholesome attention of unforgiving spirits of soldiers, cowboys and Indians who shot down by her father-in-law’s rifles. It is said that the medium told Mrs Winchester that in order to keep out or evade the spirits she must move out west and build ma house. However, the house would either shelter or confuse the spirits, she was told that she should never finish the house. As long as it was under construction, Mrs Winchester would be spared the further attacks from the spirits.
Mrs Winchester did move out west to San Jose, California. In 1884 she bought a farm and started building, using an eight-room farmhouse as a starting point. Over four decades the house was remained under construction, hiring shifts of workmen to build around the clock. By 1900 the farmhouse became a seven-story mansion which 160 rooms, 6 kitchens, 13 bathrooms, 47 stairways and fireplaces.
Mrs Winchester issued a new construction each day. Rooms were constantly being remodelled or demolished and replaced. An estimated 500-600 rooms were built in total but in 2018 only 160 remain. No architect drew up a masterplan for the house. In the middle of the house was the blue room, where Mrs Winchester would hold a séance (meeting where they would try and make contact with the dead usually with a medium) she would wear one of the 13 special coloured robes that hung on 13 hooks. It is believed that a bell could be heard at midnight and 2 am each night, this was the signal of arrival and departure of spirits. It is thought that Mrs Winchester would sleep in different rooms each night to avoid spirits and always changed the floor plan to trick them. She allowed a couple of mirrors in the house because spirits must not see their own reflection and she installed many bright lights because spirits were said to hate shadows.
Many say Mrs Winchester had something spooky about her as she would have secret passages and hidden doors to spy and creep up on her servants.
