There is little in the way of hard facts known about Sarah. As Mariah Kampschafer, who has worked as a guide at the house since 2012, admits, most tales about Sarah and her home are conjecture. Visitors will walk narrow, zig-zagging staircases, spot curiosities like upside-down pillars and cupboards a half-inch deep, and even see rooms damaged by the deadly 1906 San Francisco earthquake (which also removed the house’s fifth, sixth and seventh floors).īut of all the enduring mysteries surrounding Winchester, perhaps Sarah is the biggest. Whatever the truth, a tour of the mansion is packed with strange insights and intriguing theories. Legend has it, however, the widow believed herself haunted by the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles. (The average daily wage back then was $1.50.) After her husband, William Wirt Winchester, passed, she received an inheritance of $1,000 a day. Sarah could build such a lavish abode because she was heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune. Just as extraordinary is its sheer size: what started as a two-story farmhouse was transformed by Sarah into a seven-story, castle-like residence, with 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces and 10,000 panes of glass. There are also many decorative spider-web patterns – people believed the latter would bring good luck at the time. (Guides nickname this room “the mother-in-law suite.”)Įerie motifs abound: the number 13 appears everywhere (ceilings with 13 panels 13 coat hooks in the “seance room”.
San jose winchester house tour windows#
Look out for staircases that lead to ceilings windows set into floors a door that opens onto a 12-foot drop. The house, a sprawling puzzle of carnival funhouse-esque quirks, perplexes mere mortals as much as malevolent spirits.
Stealing a peek inside the house isn’t confined to the theater, though – you can easily visit yourself.
The Oscar winner portrays Sarah Winchester, who it’s said designed the eccentric home to bamboozle ghosts.
San jose winchester house tour movie#
But it has drawn international travel attention thanks to the 2018 release of “Winchester,” a horror movie starring Helen Mirren. Winchester Mystery House has loomed large in the imaginations of San Jose locals ever since it was built in 1884. It’s not a convoy of self-driving cars or a brigade of AI robots, but an extravagant, four-story, gabled and turreted Victorian mansion said to be “the most haunted in America.” There’s an odd sight just outside downtown San Jose, California’s “capital of Silicon Valley.”
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