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The furniture inside the home today reflects the period, but her personal belongings, including the contents of the house, were left to her niece, Marian Marriott, who kept what she wanted and sold the remainder at auction. There are gold and silver chandeliers, hand-inlaid parquet floors, and many original stained-glass windows rumored to have been created by Tiffany. At one point prior to the 1906 earthquake, the house stood seven stories tall, but it was reduced—likely due to damage caused by the quake.
The Terrifying True Story Of The Winchester Mystery House And The Tormented Heiress Who Built It
Guide to Winchester Mystery House, San Jose's spooky historic mansion - San Francisco Chronicle
Guide to Winchester Mystery House, San Jose's spooky historic mansion.
Posted: Thu, 29 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The Grand Ballroom in the Winchester Mystery House is the most expensive room in the house. The construction cost more than $9,000 when it was built in the late 1800’s, about 3.5 times the cost of an entire home during that time. Millions of guests over the years have raved over the many detailed instances of thirteen, the famous Shakespearean-inscribed windows (from Troilus and Cressida & Richard II), and the haunting tale of the safe hidden behind multiple layers. Not only is this one of the most well-preserved rooms in the house, it also inspired the ballroom design at Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride. 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.
FRIDAY THE 13TH FLASHLIGHT TOURS
We do ask that any minor be accompanied with an adult at any time. Tragedy befell Sarah – her infant daughter died of a childhood illness and a few years later her husband was taken from her by tuberculosis. Even more luxurious than the fixtures was the plumbing and electrical work. Rare for the time, the Winchester Mystery House boasted indoor plumbing, including coveted hot running water, and push-button gas lighting available throughout the home. Public DomainOne of the staircases to nowhere in the Winchester mansion. Stranger so was the fact that many of the alterations seemed pointless.
Flashlight tours
The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, that was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. 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. The rumors only grew after her death, when the property sold at auction to a private investor for around $135,000—today just north of $2 million.
Monster of the Month w/ Colin Dickey: Arctic Ghosts
SAN JOSE, CA (September 9, 2020)—The Winchester Mystery House announced today that on Saturday, September 12th, visitors will once again be able to explore the 160-room mansion on a new Self-Guided Mansion Tour. The touchless, self-guided experience allows guests to independently navigate the world’s most bizarre home and expansive estate. Tickets will be available today at winchestermysteryhouse.com/buy-tickets and also include access to the estate gardens. Other than household staff, few saw the home’s interior during Winchester’s lifetime. She kept to herself following the deaths of her husband and infant daughter, Annie, from illness.
The new self-guided tour has been designed to prioritize the safety of guests and staff and is compliant with all current county and state guidelines. The garden tour is entirely outdoors and a completely touchless, experience featuring 20 stops throughout the beautiful Victorian Gardens. Guests can go through this self-guided exploration with an audio guide and a digital map.
Wear Your San Jose Pride
Want to hear more ghost stories about the Winchester Mystery House? Listen to this week's episode of our haunted house podcast series, Dark House, for exclusive ghost stories and insights into the home's haunted reputation. Few people aside from household staff and teams of carpenters and other workmen were invited into the mansion during Sarah's lifetime, and very few if any interior photographs were taken.
Winchester Mystery House celebrates 100 years of history and mystery in San Jose - KGO-TV
Winchester Mystery House celebrates 100 years of history and mystery in San Jose.
Posted: Fri, 30 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Explore more Tour FAQs
Experience a historic first as the Winchester Mystery House opens its doors to the public for an exclusive Paranormal Investigation within the darkened halls of the mansion. This is your chance to become an active participant in the world of the unexplained, as seen on your favorite paranormal shows & channels. What stands today is four-story, 160-room, 24,000-square-foot mansion constructed mostly out of redwood on less than five remaining acres of land in one of the city's most heavily trafficked West Valley neighborhoods.
Labyrinth construction
For the first time ever, the Winchester Mystery House is offering guests 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, from the basement to the rarely seen fourth floor, while exploring many rooms previously inaccessible on standard Estate tours. Open to the public since 1923, the Winchester Mystery House offers daily guided tours of the estate where guests will have the opportunity to explore the mystery and unlock the secrets to the world-famous home. Also on the estate, Axe Throwing, Annual Public Events, and the seasonal Halloween experience, Unhinged. As the widow of William Winchester, whose family's eponymous company, The Winchester Repeating Arms Company, Sarah came into a $20 million inheritance along with 50 percent ownership in the firearms business when William died in 1881. That fortune enabled her to transform the humble ranch house into a massive mansion on hundreds of acres, but it also fueled rumors that Sarah built the home to escape the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle.
It is true that she married Wirt in 1862 and four years later gave birth to a daughter, Annie Pardee Winchester, who died a month later. They never had another child, and just 15 years later, Sarah lost her husband, her mother, and her father-in-law to the plague of her time, tuberculosis. She inherited $20 million, but that didn't make her heart any less broken. Lonely and looking to start anew, she packed up her things in Connecticut and moved to San Jose, California, where she bought the aforementioned ranch.
Furthermore, she would sleep in a different room every night in the Winchester house, and use secret passageways to get from room to room so that no spirits could follow her. Additionally, Winchester insisted that the home be built exclusively out of redwood – however, she didn’t like the look of the wood, so she insisted it be covered with a stain and a faux grain. By the time the house was completed, over 20,000 gallons of paint had been used to cover the wood. In 1884, Sarah Winchester purchased what would later become known as the Winchester Mystery House. At the time of the sale, the house was a small unfinished farmhouse, but that quickly changed. Newly in possession of a massive fortune and struggling with the loss of her husband and daughter, she sought the advice of a medium.
Many of these myths took hold in Sarah’s own lifetime, fueled by her silence and withdrawal from public life, but also onlookers’ feelings about the grandeur and expense of her seemingly inexplicable mission. Ignoffo says Sarah’s own doctor was urging her to seek out warmer climes that would be better for her health and her grief. What’s more, says Ignoffo, one of Sarah’s surviving sisters was planning her own move out West to Oakland — a relocation that spurred the rest of the family, including Sarah, to join her and make the huge move together. This account sees Sarah move to the Bay Area not as a lone widow hell-bent on a pact with the dead, but as a family — the only family she really had left. At 24,000 square feet, the resulting 160-room mansion boasts 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 stairways, 17 chimneys and 13 bathrooms. In today’s money, the Mystery House’s construction costs would have totaled $71 million.
Over the past two years, the Winchester Mystery House has completed restoration projects on two of the oldest rooms in Sarah Winchester’s San Jose mansion. The Twin Dining Rooms are believed to be the original dining area of the modest farm house that Sarah bought when she moved to San Jose in the mid-1880s. The renovated rooms have become a popular sight to see on the Mansion Tour. However, due to the exposed areas of the basement and the third floor, which require safety helmets, children under 5 are not permitted. It is recommended that children must be 5 and up and be able to walk unassisted.
It was in one of these other houses that she actually chose to spend most of her final years. Sarah’s new San José neighbors were baffled, and the local press became fascinated. And they weren’t just intrigued by the scale of her ever-expanding compound. Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 in Connecticut. After marrying William Winchester, she suffered two waves of devastating loss in her life.
Experience the ultimate exploration of Winchester Mystery House with our Explore More Tour —an exclusive opportunity see even more rooms in this historic mansion. Prepare to uncover hidden secrets and unlock doors to the oldest sections of the home. The Winchester Mystery House is offering guests unprecedented access to the most beautiful and bizarre Victorian Mansion.
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