The Winchester Mystery House

Author Kaitlynn Burkett

This extravagant Victorian house built in San Jose, California by Sarah Winchester in still a mystery to millions of people. It is know as The Winchester Mystery House. The house is known as the “house built by spirits”. It is explained on the website to be marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, The Winchester Mystery House . In this mystery house, there are many different architectural differences than a normal house of mansion. It includes many mile long twisting hallways with secret passages in the walls. Mrs. Winchester built a house like this to protect herself from “bad spirits.” Her house was constantly changing day by day and being added on to. This house is estimated to have about 500 to 600 rooms through remodeling constantly, now left is about 160 remaining. Her furnishes included gold and sliver plated chandeliers, and Tiffany art glass that valued up to $1,500 each. Over thirty-three years, a man built and repaired the Winchester Mystery House parquet floors. They are made of mahogany, rosewood, teak, maple, oak and white ash. Sarah actually died in this room with the parquet floors. Supposedly her favorite room. The mansion also consists of the finest cabinets, forty-seven fireplaces, seventeen chimneys, and a grand ballroom that cost over $9,000. 

Mrs. Sarah Winchester was born around 1840. Her parents were Leonard Pardee and Sarah Burns. She was from New Haven, Connecticut. In 1862, she married William Wirt Winchester. His parents were Oliver Fisher Winchester. Soon after they were married, they moved to New England. In 1866, an awful tragedy occurred when they daughter Annie died of a rare disease. Both in very deep depression after loosing their infant. Fifteen years later, Mrs. Sarah was all alone. Her husband died from tuberculosis. From some sources, it is explained that spirits haunted her family, as Sarah believed. As instructed by the spirits, she packed up her things and headed west to start building this mansion. She had no intentions of this before, but to go see her niece who lived in Menlo Park, California. But of course she had 777 shares of stocker in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and 2,000 more shares from her mother in law passing to build this house. Well back in the 1800’s with no income tax, she had $1,ooo a day. After living in this house and building it for the spirits, she passed away in 1922 because of heart failure.
As of today, this mansion is somewhat smaller because of remodeling. It now contains 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens.   

Works Cited:

Cunningham, Bill. “Inside the Winchester Mystery House.” ABC News. ABC News. 27 October 2008.
Web. 10 October 2013.

Edmonds, Molly. “Why does the Winchester Mystery House have stairs leading nowhere?” How Stuff Works. How Stuff Works. n.d. Web. 10 October 2013. 

“Shaking Chandelier Spooks Staff at Winchester Mystery House.” CBS Local News. N.p. 25 July 2013. Web. 10 October 2013.

Taylor, Troy. “The Winchester Mystery House.” Prairie Ghosts.” Haunted Places. 2013. Web. 10 October 2013.

The Winchester Mystery House, eds. Winchester Mystery House. N.p. 2013. Web. 9 October. 2013.

Grant, Kay. "Winchester Mystery House." Travel Lady Magazine. March 2005. (March 26, 2008) 


For Further Research:
http://travellady.com/Issues/March05/1300WinchesterMysteryHouse.htm. This article explains the architecture of the house and the reason it was built.

NBC Bay Area Staff. “Winchester Mystery House Observes Friday the 13^th.” (September, 13, 2013)

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Winchester-Mystery-House-Observing-Friday-the-13th-223652621.html. This article explains what NBC observed on Friday the 13^th with the spirits in the Mystery House.

Strangetastic.com. "Mystery House Commentary." (March 26, 2008)

. This article is commentary on the house.