Andrew Marcec » The Winchester House

The Winchester House

Oct 27, 2009 | No Comments | @andrewmarcec

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Many are familiar with the infamous Winchester house out in California. It has made appearances in several films, “Rose Red”, and also been featured on several television shows on the travel channel. Though the house is something that you must see to truly believe the story starts back on the East Coast and revolves around the deaths of countless American lives.

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(This is the only known photo of Sarah Winchester)

Sarah Pardee was born in 1839 in Connecticut, she quickly became very popular around town, frequenting parties and charming everyone with her good looks and personality. Then one night she met William Wirt Winchester, heir to Winchester Repeating Arms Company. They were married September 30th, 1862, and things seemed to be anything other than perfect. The Civil War was at its height, and the Winchester sales were soaring through the roof with the invention of their latest gun, the Henry rifle. Four years after they were married Sarah would be come pregnant and give birth to her first, and only child. This is when things started their downward spiral.

The infant, Anna, contracted marasmus, a form of severe protein-energy malnutrition, and causes the body to appear emaciated as the inflicted’s body weight is reduced to less than 80%. Anna died shortly after her birth driving Sarah to become a recluse, teetering on the edge of madness for near a decade. However, Sarah’s reclaimed sanity would not last long.

William Winchester, Sarah’s husband and heir to the Winchester fortune contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. He died not long after having contracted the disease, leaving Sarah with 50% of the Winchester fortune at her disposal, $20 million, and also a $1,000 daily income. No amount of money could cure Sarah’s sadness and brought all the pain from her child’s death back to the surface. Before Sarah completely detached herself from reality a friend suggested that she go and see a psychic medium.

The medium said that there was a curse on the Winchester family. All the weapons made to take life had created angry spirits, spirits that wanted revenge. The medium advised her to move West, and build a new life there. The medium also advised that she should build a house, a house not only for herself but also one that would house the spirits of the dead. Sarah was told never to stop building the house…and if she should stop, she would die.

She reached the Santa Clara Valley in 1884 and purchased a six room home that was under construction and negotiated the sale of the house. Price was no object. She looked out over the 162 acre lot, with her employ of 22 carpenters who worked in shifts so that they could build 24 hours a day, year round.

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Sarah had no master plan for the Winchester house, she had thrown away all blueprints from the old house, and would hastily sketch new plans for the carpenters, plans she claimed had been told to her by the spirits themselves. If a room ended up being too small, they would build another around it. If a wing was built and Sarah was not pleased, it was demolished and something new was build there.

Sarah tried to have parts of the house build to confuse the spirits who haunted her. Stairways were built to nowhere, closets opened to black walls, trap doors, double-back hallways, skylights built one above another, and doors that opened to nowhere are just some of the oddities present in the mansion.

The number 13 was also one that intrigued Sarah Winchester, and can be seen throughout the house. All the windows contained 13 panels, man of the wooden floors contained 13 sections, some rooms had 13 windows, every single staircase but one has 13 steps.

skylight in the floor

By 1906 the house had grown to 7 stories tall, then came the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The top three stories of the house collapsed and trapped Sarah in her bedroom. Frantic and tired, she claimed that the earthquake was a sign from the spirits that she had almost completed the house. Fearing for her life, she boarded up the first 30 rooms to trick the spirits into thinking that the house was not finished, and also to trap whatever spirits were inside those rooms forever.

winchesterstairs

Sarah had a room where she conducted all of her seances, and in the early morning hours of September 4, 1922 Sarah retired from a long session in the seance room and went to bed, never to wake.

The house has been a mystery ever since, and is now part of the California Historical Society where it has been restored as best it could. Many believe the house is still haunted today. Haunted by the ghosts that Sarah Winchester tried so hard in life to avoid, and now is a part of in death.

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