Inside the house can be found hallways with 13 ceiling panels, 13 coat hooks in the seance room, 13 windows in the 13th bedroom, and closets with 13 hanger pegs. Was it used for superstitious reasons, or was it simply Sarah’s favorite number? We may never know. The number thirteen is used in repetition all throughout the house. Inside the safe is said to house locks of hair from her daughter and husband, and their death certificates. There is a safe that holds Sarah’s most sacred possessions that is hidden behind the ballroom and four separate doors. This design was incorporated to accommodate Sarah Winchester’s crippling arthritis. Most of the stairs in the house were only four feet and 10 inches and are zig-zagging upward. Remember the Tiffany windows? They are placed in areas where they receive no light. There were many oddities built into the house including secret passageways, a door with an eight foot drop to the kitchen sink, a door with a fifteen foot drop into the garden bushes, stairs leading to nowhere, sealed off rooms, windows set in the floor and opening into other rooms, repetition of the number thirteen, a cabinet that extends through thirty rooms, and a seance room. It had several pieces of technology that were considered to be futuristic like three elevators, high-tech ways of heating the house, and communication devices with the staff. In 1923 when the house was opened for tours, it would have been worth five million dollars equaling seventy-one million dollars today. The house was designed with an “eclectic Victorian-era curiosity.” It is filled with exquisite details such as Tiffany stained glass windows, custom made chandeliers, and hand-inlaid parquet floors. It is said she felt as though she was cursed, and spent her entire life in mourning wearing only black dresses.
Winchester needed something to occupy her mind to deal with the grief of losing her daughter and husband. She was convinced that once construction was complete she would die.Īnother theory suggested that Mrs. She would regularly sleep in different rooms and take labyrinth paths throughout the house trying to confuse them. In order to stay safe, she would need to build a house that could fit all of the spirits that had fallen by the hand of the Winchester rifles, and to keep the evil spirits confused. Sarah Winchester visited a medium, and the psychic told her that the deaths of her daughter and husband were payback by angry spirits who had been killed by Winchester rifles. There’s also Victorian gardens that can be explored, a museum of the Winchester Rifle, a shooting gallery, a cafe, and a gift store. These include a window built into the floor, staircases leading to ceilings, a chimney that rises four floors to stop 1 1/2 feet from the ceiling, doors that open into blank walls, upside down posts, doors leading to nowhere, a seance room, and much more. Today the house can be visited offering tours of the mansion, seeing 110 of the 160 rooms, and experience the bizarre attributes that give the house its name.
Unfortunately, most of the furniture was gone from the house, so what’s there now are replicas.ġ974: Became a state historical landmark.Ģ018: Movie was made starring Helen Mirren. There was 130 year old wall paper found in a stock pile that was used, and new pieces were made from molds of old patterns. Today, however, you can enter through the front door.ġ922: Sarah Winchester died and the property was sold.ġ924: Magician Harry Houdini visited the house on Halloween night to try and debunk the paranormal stories associated with the “mystery house.” He left with more questions than he had answers for.ġ930’s: Officially marketed as the “Winchester Mystery House.”ġ970: Restoration began. She ordered the unfinished front half of the house to be boarded up. Sarah took this as a warning from the spirits that the construction was too close to completion. The 7th story tower and most of the 4th floor were damaged and later demolished. As a result, there are many opportunities to see daisies inside the house.ġ903: Daisy got married and left the house.ġ906: Great San Francisco Earthquake damaged the house. The reasons behind the constant construction are forever a mystery, but there have been several speculations… Timelineġ886-1922: Began round the clock construction.ġ888: Marion “Daisy” Merrenan, Sarah’s favorite niece, moved in for fifteen years. It was said that an “eccentric and wealthy woman” was building a “mystery house” with round the clock construction. Rumors of the “mystery house” began circulating even before Sarah’s passing.