![]() Ticketholders for the apres-sunset tours are asked to arrive 30 minutes early, presumably to give them time to shop the Winchester Mystery House casual apparel collection and buy a pulled-pork quesadilla from the Winchester Mystery House Cafe. The popular tour provides one of the few opportunities to tour the structure after dark, along with the similar “Candlelight Tours” that take place during the Halloween season of September 14 through October 31. It’s become an iconic tourist trap - offering tours, Halloween-themed haunted houses, a cafe and, of course, a large gift shop that offers everything from Winchester Mystery House hoodies to what the shop describes as “fine jewelry.”įor those looking for an extra frisson of fright, there’s a “Flashlight Tour” of the house each Friday the 13 th. The home now operates as a bustling business, catering to tourists and ghost hunters, rather than history buffs. Interstate 280 runs directly alongside the mansion, and its din can be heard throughout the 4.5-acre property.īut modern intrusions don’t stop at the Winchester Mystery House property line. ![]() Today, the Santana Row shopping center, high-rise office complexes, movie theaters and a Brazilian steakhouse are among its neighbors. When Winchester began construction, the surrounding area was the rural Santa Clara Valley. The number 13, a favorite of Winchester’s, pops up repeatedly. Spider webs proliferate throughout the home, as both natural and design elements. Many rooms remain unfinished, just the way Winchester left them when she died. Some staircases lead directly into solid walls, while others end at open two-story drops. Winchester was notorious for allowing mediums and spirit guides to help her design her home, which has more than 160 rooms. By some accounts, the home was designed by Winchester to appease the ghosts of all the people killed by Winchester rifles. Winchester started building her custom mansion along what is now South Winchester Boulevard in 1884 - and thanks to her immense wealth and questionable mental stability, continued construction right up until her death in 1922. But the former home of firearm heiress Sarah Winchester is so bizarre that once you are inside, distractions disappear like the elusive apparitions so many have claimed to see in the house. Wish You Were Here? The 10 Most Haunted Places to Visit This Summer.The neighborhood surrounding San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House isn’t particularly scary, unless you’re frightened by the bustling upscale shopping mall and movie theater complex across the street. This Snow-Covered Michigan Bridge Is So Scary, Authorities Drive Motorists Across Is This Bar Haunted? Footage Shows Glasses Flying Off Shelves and Chairs Moving The Winchester house has been open to tours since 1923. “Legend has it when Sarah’s around, you catch the smell of roses and I was watching through this hallway in pitch black after doing a shoot and right as I hit a cross section of the hallway - boom - roses,” Williams said. Some say the heiress still haunts the rooms of her own home. “Sarah would come in here during the evenings and consult the spirits to see which room she would build next,” Williams told Inside Edition. Marketing director Jacob Williams says the widow sought guidance in the séance room. Sarah Winchester reportedly believed that if she ever stopped construction on the house, the ghosts would get her. There are countless windows on interior walls with no clear function, including a window in the floor in the middle of a room. The peculiar residence has 40 staircases and 2,000 doors, including one that allows you to leave one room with no floor beneath it. The mysterious mansion has no floor plan or blueprint. ![]() One door in the sprawling room opens to a fire safe door that opens to a safe that opens to a smaller safe. The grand ballroom is one of the most ornate rooms in the behemoth home. It’s not clear why the heiress was compelled to build such a labyrinth of a home, but legend says she believed a medium who warned her that the family was cursed by the victims of rifles made by Winchester Repeating Arms Co., and the ghosts of those victims would only be satisfied if Winchester built them a home, spawning the large-scale and constant construction. What started off as a meek two-story farmhouse ended as a four-story 24,000 square-foot enigma of a residence, leaving Winchester to sink most of her inherited fortune into the construction of the house. Construction began on the mansion in 1886, but according to historians, never ended until her death in 1922. ![]()
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