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THE HOUSE THAT SARAH BUILT
Although the piano keys are broken, music drifts down the hallway. Footsteps echo in the rooms, but nobody has lived there for years. Is this a scary Hollywood movie? No, it’s actually the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Sarah Winchester bought the house in 1884. At that time, it was just an 8-room farmhouse. Over the next 38 years, she added 152 rooms. This mysterious house is now listed in the National Directory of Haunted Places. Family History Sarah was born and raised in Connecticut before moving to California. She married William Winchester during the Civil War. William was the son of the inventor of the Winchester rifle, called “the gun that won the West.” Sarah had a baby daughter, Annie, who died at only one month from marasmus, an inability to digest food. Fifteen years later, her husband died from tuberculosis. Sarah, very saddened by these deaths, contacted Adam Coons, a spirit medium. He told her ghosts had taken the lives of her family to avenge the deaths of everyone killed by the Winchester rifle. She would be cursed forever, unless she took a strange step. The medium told Sarah the only way to banish this curse was to move west, buy a house and keep adding rooms to it forever. Construction Begins Sarah inherited $20 million dollars from the Winchester estate and she freely spent this money to build her strangely magnificent house. For 24 hours every day for 38 years, she kept carpenters, gardeners, and servants hammering, remodeling, and planting. Some stairway steps were only two inches high. Were they built so small to accommodate the petite 4’ 10” Sarah or only to confuse the ghosts? There were 47 fireplaces installed, although some chimneys never reached the ceiling. Cupboards opened up to another room or in one case, a 1 ½” ledge. Sarah had a special room devoted to séances called the “Blue Séance Room”. The famous magician Houdini tried to contact her there after her death. There is no record whether he was successful. Sarah used the number 13 in many ways throughout her mansion. Each evening, she dined with 13 place settings, one for her and the other 12 for “ghost guests”. Among her many stained glass windows was one with a spider-web design embedded with 13 blue and amber stones. She also signed her will 13 times. In 1906, the tragic San Francisco earthquake took place, which did immense damage to her mansion. The top three floors were completely ruined. Sarah, asleep in one of her 40 bedrooms, became trapped inside after a fireplace collapsed. After workers rescued her, she boarded up that section of the house. She felt the earthquake had been a sign from angry spirits, and she would try to keep them locked up in this area. In 1922, the estate fell silent when Sarah died at the age of 82. She had never stopped her obsession with trying to elude the curse of the angry spirits. Visiting Sarah’s House Today, people from all over the country come to see the house that Sarah built. Located at 525 S. Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, it is open every day except Christmas Day. For the truly brave, there are special Halloween and Friday the 13th tours, guided only by the moon and a flashlight. To learn more about this mansion, go to www.winchestermysteryhouse.com. Is Sarah finally at peace? Or is she still wandering the curving staircases to nowhere, hoping to contact the spirit of her long dead husband, William, or her daughter, Annie? Perhaps the mystery of the house that Sarah built will never be solved.
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