The Winchester House
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Dates Active: 1886 to 1906
Category: Haunting
Cause: Boredom, Damage
Status: Closed
Entry ID: 012824D-00048
Summery:
This mansion was presumably under near constant construction by Winchester rifle fortune heiress to ward off the spirits of those killed by the weapon.
In Depth:
Sarah Winchester was the wife of William Wirt Winchester, who was son of Oliver Winchester, the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. When William passed away from tuberculosis in 1881, Sarah Winchester moved to California where she began construction on what was then known as the Llanada Villa, currently known as the Winchester House or Winchester Mystery House.
The house itself is full of strange oddities, with unusually shallow staircases, staircases that lead to the ceiling, windows into other rooms or walls, and other confusing features. There were doors that opened up into nothing, including one that opened from the second floor into the air without any sort of balcony or stairs.
According to legend, the reason for the house's strange design choices were because Sarah had become obsessed with the paranormal and began worrying that she would become the target of the spirits of people killed by the guns made by her father-in-law's and husband's company. The legend further states that she had began construction of strange features within the Llanada Villa in order to confuse any revenge-seeking ghosts from finding her. Other rumors claimed that Sarah meet with a medium that told her that she would die if she ever finished constructing the house. Still others claim that Sarah's mental health began to severely decline after the death of her husband William, with exacerbated her crazy design choices.
Most of these rumors are false, as people who knew Sarah, including many of her servants and staff, stated that she was very much in a sound state of mind despite her strange design choices considering the construction of the villa. Instead, she was said to be very interested in the construction process, and would stop the building of rooms and features if they did not meet her very strict standards. Many of the more confusing features of the home are due to damage done by earthquakes, such as the loss of the 7-story tower and the demolishing of the entire third and fourth floors. This damage explains the majority of areas that have strange or odd features, especially on the upper floors.
The house is currently claimed to be haunted - especially by modern day tour guides - in order to bring attention to the house as a tourist attraction. Despite this, very little evidence has been offered to prove this. As of right now, the house indeed an interesting historical landmark, but hardly a supernatural one.
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Last Updated: March 31, 2024
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