Round the clock construction of this mansion began in 1884 and did not stop until her death in 1922. After he died from tuberculosis in 1881, their only child, Annie, died from marasmus, severe malnutrition.Īfter experiencing so much grief and loss, Sarah visited a medium who told her the only way she could ever be at peace was to continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifles. Her husband, William Winchester, was treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. We were greeted by the tour guide who started the tour with a short history of the Winchester family focusing on Sarah Winchester, the resident and architect of the mansion. I cannot imagine how intimidating it must have looked in the past. Originally, before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it was seven storeys high. Today, it stands stands four storeys high. As soon as you open the door to the courtyard you are greeted by the mansion. We were told to wait in the outdoors courtyard until the tour began. As soon as we arrived we went to the ticket desk and were luckily able to reserve two places on the first tour of the day. The only way to see the mansion is on a tour. It is not presented as a place for cheap thrills, but, as a mansion with a foreboding history and with secrets around every corner. After scrolling through the official webpage, I became more and more curious. One of the first hits was the Winchester Mystery House – ‘ an extravagant maze of Victorian craftsmanship – marvelous, baffling, eerily eccentric, and undeniably, haunted’ (Homepage – Winchester Mystery House). A visit will reveal a fascinating history of the Winchester family and a slice of 18th and 19th century American intrigue.īefore we started our long drive from San Francisco to Las Vegas, I went straight to Google to see what we could do along the way. The mansion is registered on the National Register of Historic Places and contains two small museums inside the grounds. Also, it has motivated me to write a blog entry on my visit to the Winchester Mystery House back in 2014. I will say that it did contain some good jump scares so I was pretty pleased. Last night I decided to see the newly released film ‘Winchester’ starring the ever so fabulous feminist icon, Helen Mirren.
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