Story of This House
This house considered to be one of the most haunted houses in California and in the USA. Now, please, enjoy its story. For some time life had been very good for Sarah Winchester. She was a child from a rather wealthy family, she was beautiful, charming, clever, adored music and knew several languages. In 1862, she succeeded to marry the only heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Co., and in 1866 she gave birth to a girl, she named her Annie.
But, since 1866 tragedies started happening to her. Her daughter died in infancy, a few years later William, her husband died. Sarah was left alone with huge capital – $20-million and she received about 50% ownership of the company, thus, getting $1,000 dollars every day (approximately $21,000 a day in 2006).
Sarah was shocked and didn’t know how to live, even her wealth could do nothing to ease her pain. Her grief was so deep… Her friend suggested Sarah to visit a medium and she did it. She believed her family to be cursed. It is not known for sure, whether the medium confirmed her suspicions or not, but according to most of the versions, Sarah was told that there is a curse on her family, it is resulted from awful aftermaths of Winchester weapon usage. So, soon it was going to take Sarah too. In order to stay alive she had to move west and to buy a house there and to build it till the rest of her life. Otherwise, she could die.
This poor woman made everything right in this way: in 1884 she reached the Santa Clara Valley and bought there a 6-room home (with a site nearly 162 acres). Without creating any special plan she started building this house. For the following 36 years local workers built and rebuilt this house, without any logic and a plan, people worked 24 hours a day, year round. Sarah was intrigued by the number “13″, so, most of windows had 13 panes of glass, most walls had 13 panels and so on. Thus, the house is full of phenomena: staircases leading to nowhere, blind doors, 47 fireplaces, unfinished rooms… Just before the earthquake this house had 7 stories, but later 3 of them were destroyed, Sarah herself was unharmed.
Mrs. Winchester died in her late eighties, she believed, that this constant building would appease her sins and sins of her family, so it was a house for spirits and ghosts.
True story
Many people will ask, whether this house is really haunted? A number of strange events were reported there, most physics claimed that spirits are still present in this house: mysterious voices, strange sounds, banging windows. The Winchester House looks more like a labyrinth.
Nowadays, it is possible to make a ghost tour there, try one.
Interesting facts:
- Number of kitchens: 6
- Number of doors: 950 (without cabinet doors)
- Number of bedrooms: 40
- Number of skylights: 52
- Number of staircases: 40
I must say, this was one of the better written stories I’ve ever read. The title alone caught my attention. The pictures of this so called hunted house are very eye appealing.
Now onto the story itself- I must say this lady started off with such bad luck. Seeing here daughter and husband die right in front of her eyes must have been very heart recking.
As for the house being haunted? I do not buy into that theory. I believe this lady bought into bad luck and nothing more.
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Thak you for the news
i used to tour the winchester house when i was a little girl. even now i can remember standing outside the room she died in. i could not remember her whole story. thank u so much!
The Winchester house is beautiful! I visited there in 9/8/2001. It was very intriguing, but what a sad story–the poor woman! Thank you for putting the story online.
I have toured the Winchester Mystery House about 4 times, once while living in Campbel with my sister, San Jose is close to Campbell. During my last tour I discovered that the Mystery Tour had included a Midnight Tour in which each guest was given their own flashlight to use during the tour….that would have been Wonderful BUT my time was limited while in San Jose and I didn’t get the chance to make the tour…one of the Most unusual features of the house were Sara’s easy riser stairs….Sara had a problem walking up stairs and so had Mini Risers to make the climb easier…the tour guide always tells eveyone that it is far easier for “Us” to take two steps at a time BUT I never did….I Insisted to walk the stairs as Sara would do and yes it felt very akward but was quite fun to step into someone else’s shoes.
i used to tour the winchester house when i was a little girl. even now i can remember standing outside the room she died in. i could not remember her whole story. thank u so much!The Winchester house is beautiful! I visited there in 9/8/2001. It was very intriguing, but what a sad story–the poor woman! Thank you for putting the story online.
Who owns that house at the moment ??
with ghost or not,,,the house is sooooo fantastic!
wish to have a house like that!
thanks for this! never been there but love it!