A Queen Anne revival Victorian mansion, the home features an elaborate interior layout seemingly designed to confuse visitors: stairways end at ceilings, doors open to walls, big rooms contain smaller rooms. Today, the Winchester Mystery House is a tourist attraction in San Jose, California, and the former home of Winchester rifle heiress Sarah Winchester. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a California Historical Landmark in 1974. Over the next 20 years, at a cost of approximately $5 million, the cottage was rebuilt into a 160-room mansion, covering an area of 24,000 square feet.Įxpansion slowed after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, which toppled a seven-story tower and the upper floors of the mansion, and the heiress spent most of her final two decades at another home in nearby Atherton, leaving part of the Winchester House in disrepair.įollowing Winchester's death from congestive heart failure on September 5, 1922, the already famous home was sold and reopened soon afterward as a roadside attraction. In 1886 Winchester bought a 40-acre plot of land in San Jose, California, which included an eight-room cottage. (2006–) Winchester Mystery House and Death He also ran a progressive household, holding court with prominent abolitionists and freethinkers of the day. Her father managed the City Bathing House until finding success as a finish carpenter, providing financial security for the family. Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born in 1839 (some sources say 1840) in New Haven, Connecticut, to Sarah Burns and Leonard Pardee. The Winchester Mystery House today stands as a popular tourist attraction, thanks to its ornate, confounding interior and anecdotes of supernatural activity. Sarah Winchester married into New Haven's Winchester family, known for its 'gun that won the West.' After her husband died, Winchester embarked on the construction of a massive 160-room mansion in San Jose, California, reportedly guided by spirits, until her death in 1922. Sarah Winchester, heiress of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, earned notoriety for allegedly communicating with spirits while building a labyrinthine California mansion.

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