The Winchester Mystery House

Located in San Jose, California, the Winchester house is commonly cited as one of America most haunted houses.

Named after Sarah Lockwood Winchester, the wife of gun businessman William Wirt Winchester, (whose family created the Winchester rifle), designed and oversaw the construction of the sprawling Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion which began in 1886.

However, the story of Sarah is not a happy one.

Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Pardee around 1840 to a very wealthy family and would later marry William Winchester in 1862, and have her first child in 1866, a little girl named Annie Pardee Winchester.

Tragically, Annie would die of marasmus, a disease where undernourishment causes a child's weight to be significantly low for their age, only a month later.

Then in 1881, William died of tuberculosis, only a few months after his father, Oliver Winchester, died of the same disease in 1880.

Williams death was said to be 'unbearable' for Sarah, who reportedly reached out to spiritualists and mediums in Boston to try and help her understand the deaths of her daughter and husband.

One medium was said to get in contact with William, who told Sarah that the family was cursed and being haunted by the spirits of the people killed by the Winchester rifle, and that the family’s deaths were punishment for the bloodshed.

The medium, channelling William, said that the only way to escape the curse was to move West and build a house, and never stop building.

Supposedly, the good spirits would guide Sarah in what to build, and if she kept building, she would live forever. However, if Sarah stopped building, then the spirits of the people killed by the Winchester rifle would haunt her and her family forever.

Sarah followed her husbands, and the mediums advise, leaving her home in New Haven, Connecticut and moving West, where she purchased an 8-bedroom farmhouse in San Jose.

She employed a crew of carpenters, who split shifts, so construction could go on day and night, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, for 38 years. The work only stopped on September 5, 1922, because Sarah died of heart failure in her sleep at the age of 83. Allegedly, upon hearing the news of Sarah's death, the carpenters quit so abruptly they left half-hammered nails protruding from walls.

It's said that 500-600 rooms were built, but due to Sarah’s constant remodelling, only 161 rooms remain, one of which was only just discovered in October 2016.

The reason the Winchester house is so famous is partly due to the number of rooms, but mainly to do with the layout of the house.

Sarah issued many bizarre demands to her builders, including the building of trap doors, secret passages, a skylight in the floor and spider web windows.

People believed that Sarah built the house in such a way as to confuse the evil spirits that haunted her. The corridors and narrow and winding, some stairs only lead to the ceiling, and doors which open to brick walls.

Others believe that Sarah built the house in such a confusing way to distract herself from the grief of losing her husband and daughter.

One famous door 'The Door to Nowhere', opens to a complete drop from the second story of the house.

Another famous location in the house in the 'Hall of Fire', a corridor lined with fireplaces, which some believe was built to help Sarah’s arthritis, which she developed later in life.

Some of the haunted rooms in the house include the 'Blue Room' or the seance room, where Sarah would allegedly communicate with the good spirits on a nightly basis for building guidance. The room contains 3 entrances, with another door designed like a trap door, which would drop you into the kitchen below. This rooms paranormal activity includes organ music being heard, the feeling of dizziness and a cold feeling up one’s spine.

Another particularly haunted location is the basement, where people have reportedly seen the ghost of a care taker pushing a wheel barrow.

The house in its entirety has reports of hearing breathing, footsteps, the sounds of screws being unscrewed and dropped to the floor, as well as full body apparitions of servants and most famously Sarah herself, who is often seen in her bedroom.

The Winchester Mystery House earned landmark status on August 7, 1974. The fascinating mansion is still owned by the family who purchased it from the Winchester estate in 1922 for $150,000—however, their identity is another mystery. But thanks to them, tourists can now explore 110 of the 160-some rooms Sarah dreamed up. The Winchester Mystery House even boasts special tours on Halloween and Fridays the 13th. To this day, Winchester House is a destination for believers who hope to have a paranormal experience.

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