Winchester Mystery House

Back in June, Rudy and I visited the Winchester Mystery House. I have lived about fifteen minutes from this place my whole life and I never been to it, although Rudy had visited before. We've always talked about making a day to go but to be quite honest I'm not sure what took us this long. Spontaneously one day Rudy suggested we go take the tour and I'm so glad he did since the weather was great and the mansion wasn't packed.

Here's a brief background to this haunted mansion. Sarah Winchester was the widow of William Wirt Winchester, the treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. In 1884 Sarah purchased an unfinished farmhouse in Santa Clara Valley and quickly began building the mansion we now know as the Winchester Mystery House located in San Jose, California. This mansion is called a 'mystery house' because of the unusual structure including doors and staircases that go nowhere, and windows that overlooked into other rooms. The house is filled with so many things that just don't make sense, to us. Sarah designed these absurd creations because of her belief in ghosts. She believed that her family and fortune was haunted by the ghosts that were killed with the Winchester rifles. Sarah Winchester hired people to work around the clock to build rooms to confuse some spirits along with other rooms as a tribute to those victims until it eventually became a seven-story mansion. She continued to have rooms built and rebuilt in the house nonstop up until her death on September 5, 1922. 

The mansion is now privately owned by Winchester Investments LLC and serves as a tourist attraction. It is a designated California historical landmark and is listed as number 110 on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rudy and I took their basic tour but they do offer an extended version where they show you a lot more of the mansion and rooms Mrs. Winchester created. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take any photos inside the mansion during your tour. I believe our tour guide said something about the Winchester film bought all the rights to photos. You are however allowed to take all the photos you like outside of the house and that's what Rudy and I did. 

I had a lot of fun learning more about the history of this haunted mansion. I think it's so cool that this landmark has been so close to me my whole life. I consider myself kind of lucky to be able to say this. Now, here are the photos that we took.

One of the doors that lead to nowhere.

Rudy captured some really great shots of me and of the statues down below!

The front doors to the mansion.

The carriage that Mrs. Winchester rode around in.

A standard sized door and a miniature door for the ghosts.

The actual costumes from the Winchester film worn by actors Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook, and Finn Scicluna-O'Prey.

I would love to go back here someday to do their flashlight tour at night. I think that would probably be very cool to experience especially during Halloween!

Have you ever visited the Winchester Mystery House? If not, would you dare to?