For those who don't live in California, her house is in San Jose, about 60 miles from San Francisco and still had damage as did most buildings in the area. We get to admire the results of her paranoia, which wasn't helped by the fact that she was trapped in a room, by herself, after The Earthquake, until some of her staff were able to break through a jammed door. There's a lot more to learn if you can go there personally. She may have been overly superstitious, but she wasn't uneducated in money matters and studied building contstruction on her own. She feared ghosts of Indians, Cowboys, Outlaws, soldiers, and eschewed any association with the rich and powerful that she and her husband used to see socially. The house became a tourist attraction nine months after Winchester's death in 1922. The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, that was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate. After he died, she moved as far away from the rifle factory as she could, but still had income from the business. The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, that was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. Samples and history are displayed in a museum next to the house.Īs mentioned in the video, she married a Winchester (in the 1800s) who was the last male in the family business. Weapon making still is big business and government contracts can be quite lucrative. Us old farts remember when the Winchester rifle ruled west of the Mississippi, was featured in every old western movie, used by Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger, not forgetting the very real Texas Rangers and U.S. You can virtually walk, turn, look in all directions, and search for the ghosts yourself. Ticket holders can keep their tickets as vouchers that can be used in the future, with no blackout dates.Mrsqnbee: perhaps you're too young. Eschewing blueprints, Sarah used made notes and sketches on napkins when planning the architectural marvel.Īs Curbed noted of the architectural marvel in 2018, “It’s difficult to apprehend its hugeness when you’re inside, as the space is so compartmentalized and divided,” adding, “the house seems designed to confuse anyone other than its owner it is a place in which you might lose yourself.” The house comes with 160 rooms spanning 24,000 square feet, including 40 bedrooms, six kitchens, 47 fireplaces, a hydraulic elevator, and an aviary full of tropical birds. The San Jose landmark will offer a 40-minute video tour of the property from now until April 7. “We depend on our guests to help us continue her legacy and keep the history and intrigue of the house alive,” Winchester Mystery House General Manager Walter Magnuson said in a statement.Īnd with that, the Mystery House will offer free virtual tours of the noted abode in lieu of physical tours. Unfortunately, the sprawling Queen Anne Victorian, like most museums and businesses, has temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of 38 years, it’s where she built the Winchester Mystery House, a residential spectacle that draws crowds to this day. In 1884, Sarah Winchester, heiress to the titular rifle fortune, purchased a ramshackle farmhouse on 160 acres of farmland and orchards in the Santa Clara Valley.
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