Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Winchester Mystery House


Winchester Mystery House


Yesterday, we went to see the Winchester Mystery House. It is a house in San Jose, CA. And it is very interesting because of its oddity. Mrs. Winchester owned the house, and she has an unusual story, and so does the house.

Winchester Mystery House
Rooftop of the mansion.

Mr. Winchester was the president of the Winchester gun company (not exactly the right name of the company, but whatever). The company made a very popular gun in the wild wild west and was a very good seller. So Mr. Winchester made a lot of money. He married Mrs. Winchester and they lived on the east coast. They had a child, but it died early on of a rare disease when the child was only 6 weeks old! Then, not long after, Mr. Winchester died as well. His wife was left all alone, and inherited all of the company and its wealth. But she was so depressed, and it got to her head.

She was a superstitious woman so she felt as though she was cursed. She want to go see a oracle, or medium, whatever you want to call it, and the man told her she was being cursed by all of the spirits that had been killed by the gun that made her family so rich. The oracle instructed her to appease the spirits. The only way she could do that was to move west, and to begin construction on a house which would never be completed. So thats what she did. She moved to San Jose CA, bought an old farmhouse and began renovating it. The renovations never stopped for as long as she lived, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The house got so huge that it became a mansion. Then, when she ran out of room for building, she tore down sections of the house, just to rebuild them again to keep the construction going! At one point it was 7 stories tall, but during the 1906 earthquake, the highest towers fell over.

Winchester Mystery House
A window in the floor. Maybe it was a skylight? Or maybe she was crazy?

The earthquake was really strong, and it even made a fireplace in one of her rooms fall through the floor! That caused one of the walls to shift, which pinched the door shut and trapped her in the room! The servants took a long time to find her because the house was so huge, but they had to pry the door open with a crow bar. The mark of the crow bar is still on the door.

Winchester Mystery House
Crow bar mark on the door.

After the earthquake, which she thought was some kind of curse (again) for spending so much money on her house, she decided to close off the front, where she spent the most money on, never to be opened again for the rest of her life. She spent a lot of money! She made about $1000 A DAY from stock in the company. She spent about $9000 on a ball room when at the time it cost about $3000 to build a whole average house! She would talk with the spirits every night, and even ring bells in the bell towers at midnight and 2:00am every night. She never took the same path to her bedroom at night, hoping she would confuse the spirits so that they couldn't follow her to sleep!

Winchester Mystery House
The bedroom Mrs. Winchester died in.

Well, she built and built and built until her death. She died in one of her bedrooms in the night. It was a really weird house. After the tour inside, we went outside to visit the gardens.

Winchester Mystery House
A view of the gardens from the 4th floor.

Winchester Mystery House
An old wooden stove in the kitchen.

Winchester Mystery House
Mrs. Winchester's grand ballroom organ.

Winchester Mystery House
Spiderweb glass windows looking out to the garden.

Winchester Mystery House
The freakiest picture of them all! Is that a ghost or spirit caught on camera!?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Was looking at your Winchester House photos trying to see if anyone had also caught on film what I did in the "turret room". We visited in March 2009 and it was very strange because hardly any of the photos I took inside the house turned out. They all seemed fine through the view finder, but once uploaded to my computer they were almost all blurry. Except for this one which is so strikingly similar to the image that you caught that I had to share... http://rosequistbayareavacation.shutterfly.com/34



Jenn said...

April,
Wow! It is really strange how both of us got very similar photos! When I saw your photo it brought me back to that place! The house was very strange and I don't doubt that there are spirits lurking in there. Great photo! Some people think that its the stained glass windows in the turret but I'm not so convinced on how a stained glass window could make such a reflection like that. It looks like its in motion.



Unknown said...

I remember when I saw that photo and looking at it trying to imagine the light reflecting off the wall and it making that strange glowing effect. One thing that is interesting to me is that your photo was taken in the late summer and mine was taken in early spring. If it was light, wouldn't the light be different coming in that window depending on the season? I don't know. I remember it was pretty dark in that room and I've never seen light reflect off a wall like that before. I found another similar picture to ours as well, this one also taken in August. http://www.angelsghosts.com/winchester_mystery_house_ghost_pictures.html



Audra Phillips said...

We just visited in June, 2013, and were told we weren't allowed to take photos in the house. Of course my husband didn't hear that. So was taking secret photos. We caught the same thing. I never remember the light shining in the alcove like that. But there's so many photos it makes me doubt if it is paranormal. Here's our photo:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153021234875487&set=a.10153021232035487.1073741826.853610486&type=3&theater