The Winchester Mystery House

This story is about a strange house that the listener can visit.

Transcript

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Welcome to Kitts Myths and Mysteries, listened to in all 50 states and 39 countries. Stories from a world you thought you knew. Today, a strange place you can actually visit: the Winchester Mystery House. The Winchester Repeating Rifle, known as the Rifle That Won the West, was produced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, formerly the Volcanic Rifle Company. The designer of the rifle, based on the Henry Repeating Rifle, and the owner of the company was Oliver Winchester. When he died, his son, William Wirt Winchester, inherited the company. He died in 1881, and his wife, still recovering from the death of their six-week-old daughter just years earlier, inherited $20 million, and 50% of the company that paid her $1,000 a day. Grief stricken, Sarah moved to San Jose, California to be close to her two sisters and brother-in-law. You may not have heard of the Londa Villa, but that's what Sarah Winchester called the home she was having built on six acres she bought in San Jose, California. Here is where the fact and fiction of this Winchester Mystery House blurs. The story you'll hear if you tour the Winchester Mystery House is that just before Sarah left Connecticut for California, she met with a medium that told her that to appease the ghost that Winchester Rifle had killed, she needed to build a house for the spirits. Another story explains that the medium told her the inheritance was cursed, and that the spirits were out to get her unless she built a place for them to haunt. At any rate, Sarah moved to San Jose, California, where she bought a six bedroom farmhouse still under construction. She bought one hundred and forty acres of what is now downtown Los Altos, California to use as a ranch. She purchased a farmhouse for her sister and brother-in-law. Sarah also maintained a house boat in San Francisco Bay and Burlingame. It was the Lelinda Villa that captured her focus. The story goes that she hired a construction crew of 30 to construct her house working day and night for 38 years until her death in 1922. Truth, she lived on a ranch on and off as she prepared for her niece's wedding and had stopped the construction for that period of time. Needless to say, the house grew until by 1906 it was seven stories high. But then came the San Francisco earthquake, which knocked down the top three stories. At this time she directed construction to continue instead of stopping. At the time of her death, the Winchester Mystery House was get this, 25,000 square feet, 161 rooms, 200 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, of which only one worked, three elevators. But the house was not just big, it was filled with hundreds of oddities. At the time of her death there were no journals or blueprints of the house. It was said that she would meet with the foreman each morning and hand him a sketched idea for construction. The house has steps that lead to the ceiling, doors that open to reveal walls, with some openings to the outside of the building without a staircase. There are rooms with trapdoors, doorknobs that don't work because the doors have no hinges and were never meant to open. All of this might lead you to believe that, as the tour guide's story goes, all these oddities were her way of trying to fool the spirits. It's believed that she slept in a different room each night. There could be some truth to that because after the San Francisco earthquake it took them five days to locate her. It's the earthquake that could also explain some of the staircases that went to nowhere, doors that opened to walls. Before the Great Quake there were over two hundred rooms. Who's to say that the easiest way to deal with these strange happenings, doors that opened to nowhere, and a strange way to deal with the damage of the nineteen six earthquake was estimated to be over forty rooms damaged, and instead of sealing them off, they could create doors that went nowhere, closets that opened up to other rooms, which of course could result in doors opening to walls, or being nailed shut altogether. Instead of pulling out stairways that had led to a floor that now no longer existed, remember it went from six or seven stories down to three, it might have been easier to keep it in place, and of course it would now lead up to the ceiling. But all the stories of Sarah's visit to a medium and then building constantly so that the spirits would be confused were refuted by her close friend who after her death described her as a very private person. Teddy Roosevelt came to the Winchester Mystery House to visit her and banged on the front door, and she refused to answer because she didn't use her front door. Sarah Winchester was a short person. She stood about four foot ten, began construction at the age of forty six, but as she aged she got rheumatoid arthritis, and had trouble lifting her feet, so reduced the height of the steps from eight inches to two or three. She also had trouble lifting her hands above her shoulders, so invented what is called the needle shower, which consisted of a series of pipes with tiny holes that limited water to the height of her shoulders. For her servants she created a patented a washboard on the inside of a sink. She also created a system that allowed the servants to know which room she was staying in. Because there were no blueprints for the house, and even when visiting with relatives, she never discussed her house. No one really knows why the doors opened to walls and what purpose there was for the trap doors and the closets that opened up to the next room. Immediately after her death, her niece took what furniture she wanted and auctioned off the remainder. Shortly after the house was put up for sale and allegedly purchased by John and Mae Brown, a couple with what is considered a past concern with carnivals. Just one year after the passing of Sarah Winchester, Mae Brown led the first tour through the house, and is said to have created many strange stories that the tour guides use today. That's the story of the Winchester Mystery House, a place you can actually visit. The items I've mentioned, the windows, the fireplaces, the doors that go nowhere, the staircases that end going up to a ceiling, all exist, and you can see them for yourselves in San Jose, California, the Winchester Mystery House. This is Kit Crumb. Thanks for listening.