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What many consider to be the heart of the mansion, the séance room was once the very private and off-limits room to everyone but Sarah Winchester herself. Legends say that nearby residents heard the bell tower (located outside of the séance room) at midnight and again at 2am. Was this to summon and release spirits to communicate with them? One exit is through the entrance door, another leads to an 8-foot drop into the kitchen below, and the final is a one-way door that resembles a secret passageway. You’ll have to come see for yourself what lies on the other side.
IT’S REGULARLY CITED AS ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTED PLACES IN AMERICA.
The house became a tourist attraction nine months after Winchester's death in 1922. The Victorian and Gothic-style mansion is renowned for its size and its architectural curiosities and for the numerous myths and legends surrounding the structure and its former owner. Although Sarah is best known for building what would come to be known as the Winchester Mystery House, she also left other marks on the world. Four years into the construction of the mansion, Sarah Winchester purchased a 140-acre patch of land in what is now downtown Los Altos, California, as well as a nearby farmhouse for her sister and brother-in-law. The Winchester Mystery House is famous amongst history and mystery aficionados alike with its winding staircases, doors that lead to nowhere, and reported hauntings.
Odd design elements, like stairways that lead to nowhere, also make this house so well known.
Library of CongressSarah Winchester’s bedroom in her mystery mansion. Not one to risk eternal damnation at the hands of angry spirits, Sarah Winchester made it her mission to follow the medium’s advice. Soon after her visit, she packed up and moved as far west from New England as she could — to the sunny bayside city of San Jose, California.
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Ever since doors opened for tours in 1923, guests have traveled from all over the world to marvel in the beautiful and the bizarre. While visiting the Winchester Mystery House, you’ll have the opportunity to explore the must-see rooms inside of the world-famous mansion. Furthermore, there was a plausible explanation for some of the house's oddities; instead of rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake, Winchester simply had some passageways sealed off, resulting in the doors and stairways that went nowhere.
The Guided Mansion Tour
Enjoy unprecedented access to the world’s most bizarre mansion with an all-new tour —The Winchester Mystery House Immersive 360° Tour. This virtual experience allows guests to independently roam each level of the mansion, while exploring many rooms previously inaccessible on standard Estate tours. All that talk of paranormal sometimes worries parents that the tour will be to scary for children. Not to worry – all ages are welcome and the tour is very family friendly! Children five and under are free and ages 6-12 will need a ticket. As you walk away from the house’s manicured grounds, the polished facade of the upscale mall across the street smacks you in the face.
Demystifying the Winchester Mystery House
Boehme said it's likely that Winchester used this space as a sauna to help ease her arthritis. Winchester wanted the carriage room to be covered with a roof so that she could get in and out of the house without ever getting wet by the rain. The room is also notable because there is a strange door that opens onto a wall and another door that is too small to walk through.
Staffers found her in a bedroom that had been obscured by rubble. To this day, Winchester House is a destination for believers who hope to have a paranormal encounter of their own. A popular spot for such activity is the corridors of the third floor, where tour guides have claimed to hear footsteps and disembodied voices whisper their names.
Futaba Cake Building
The staircase landing opens onto an array of finished and unfinished rooms, including the Crystal Bedroom, where pale yellow, mica-flecked wallpaper gives the walls a luminous quality. One reason this room had been off-limits for so many years is concern about what sunlight might do to the wallpaper, so at some point it may need to be sealed off again. The front hall staircase leads to a Tiffany-style stained-glass window that surely once provided bright beams of color. But it was later completely enclosed by a new exterior wall, presumably put up at Winchester’s request.
An American Penelope, working in wood rather than yarn, Winchester wove and unwove eternally. Winchester hastily sketched designs on napkins or brown paper for carpenters to build additions, towers, cupolas or rooms that made no sense and had no purpose, sometimes only to be plastered over the next day. It had two chairs, an early 1900s speaker that fit into an old phonograph, and a door latched by a 1910 lock.
With additional unique architectural elements and captivating stories to share, Explore More promises a deeper look into our story like never before. Starting Friday the 13th we will be hosting Flashlight Tours every Friday evening till February 24th. These self-guided tours give guests the opportunity to roam through the halls of the purportedly haunted Victorian mansion while hearing tales of its former and (possibly current!) inhabitants. Guests will guide themselves through the mansion that is famous for its dizzying floorplan and lack of formal blueprints. Tour Hosts will be stationed throughout the house to ensure guests don’t get lost. But the drama of this house, like the drama of Winchester’s life, was unfolding on the inside.
Some staff members and guests have refused entry into this room, claiming a high amount of spiritual energy. Crowded feelings from an unusually shaped room or paranormal happenings? We offer the Mansion Tour for guests to learn about the amazing woman at the heart of this home, and to see all the bizarre architectural designs and mysterious elements of the Winchester Mystery House. But there is only so much we can show you and tell you about in one hour.
She was known for paying her workers well above the usual rate. Oftentimes, she would buy homes for her employees' families to live in while they worked on her home. At the time, newspapers were filled with advertisements, luring people to move across the country and settle in the newly incorporated California. Winchester first lived in San Francisco, but the weather bothered her arthritis. Instead, she decided to buy 40 acres of land and build a small farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley.
Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. No one is quite sure why Mrs. Winchester demanded constant changes to her very large house. "I'd like to think that [people] come to appreciate Sarah as more than just this eccentric, ghost-ridden, tragic figure," Boehme said. "She was actually a pretty interesting person, a smart lady, and she was good to her employees. She was never afraid of trying something new. She really was a good person." The ballroom is the biggest room in the house with the highest ceiling, reaching 12 feet.
In 1886 Winchester bought a 40-acre plot of land in San Jose, California, which included an eight-room cottage. Over the next 20 years, at a cost of approximately $5 million, the cottage was rebuilt into a 160-room mansion, covering an area of 24,000 square feet. Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born in 1839 (some sources say 1840) in New Haven, Connecticut, to Sarah Burns and Leonard Pardee. Her father managed the City Bathing House until finding success as a finish carpenter, providing financial security for the family. He also ran a progressive household, holding court with prominent abolitionists and freethinkers of the day.
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