I went down to visit with my nieces Kaisi and Cortney in San Jose this past week. Cortney was out visiting her sister and I wanted to see them both while Cortney was in town. So I drove down to San Jose on Wednesday and we went to the Winchester Mystery house. I will copy what my niece posted on her blog about the history of the house since she wrote it so well.
Sarah Pardee married William Winchester. William was the 2nd President of the Winchester Gun Company. Sarah and William had 1 child that lived for 6 weeks then died. Shortly after her husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He died as well. Sarah had a REALLY hard time with this and went to a psychic to control her grief. He told her that all the people who died from her husbands guns were coming to get revenge like they had on her husband and daughter. To avoid these spirits she needed to move into a house and never stop building. The spirits would get lost and not be able to find her. So she moved out to California and for 40 years built onto a house 24 hours a day. The 6 acre mansion contains 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens and 1 shower. When she died it took 8 truckloads a day for 6 1/2 weeks to clear out all the furniture. It was only 3/4 furnished. There are such weird things in the house... There are stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that go nowhere and that open onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof! It is estimated that 500 rooms to 600 rooms were built, but because so many were redone, only 160 remain.
On the tour you see 110 of the 160 rooms.
Here are some pictures we took while where were there.
This is us in front of the sign in the parking lot of the house and the plaque in front of the entrance.
The front gate as you walk into the gift shop before we started the tour. Sarah Pardee Winchester liked spiderwebs and the number 13. This is Cortney standing by the gate.
Cortney again under the number 13 formed from a tree on the estate.
Cortney, Kaisi and myself in front of the mansion.
Here we are standing at the front door of the mansion which they say Sarah was the only one who went through this Tiffany glass front door. (besides the two workers who installed them). One story they told us wast that President Theodore Roosevelt came to San Jose and while he was there stopped by the house and when he approached the front door a servant saw him from behind and told him if he was looking for a job he needed to go around back and go in at the servants entrance. He was not amused and left without even going into the house.
This is just one of the examples of the strange construction Sarah did to this house with doors that go nowhere and windows that open to walls. Cortney is trying to figure out how she can get to that door to go in.
Kaisi with one of the sculptures in the front yard of the mansion.
Here Cortney found another sculpture of a deer so she thought she would pretend she was going to attack it like a Lyon.
All in all we had a great time walking through the house, which by the way is over a mile walk and then we walked around the garden.
We found these purple roses and thought how pretty but I had never seen a purple rose before.
We also found one of those photo booths you get in to take a picture of yourself and decided to cram all three of us in it and get a picture taken.
We did get a picture and here it is.
I did the fortune teller machine and this is the fortune I got.
You're not suppose to take pictures inside the house but I snapped a couple with my cell phone of the ball room that never was used. Sarah tried to have a party and invited the towns people but they thought she was crazy and no one came after that Sarah turned her back on the town. Anyway here is a couple pictures.
The two windows have saying from two different Shakespeare plays one was Henry VII but I don't remember the other. I wish the picture was a bit better so you could make out the writing.
All in all it was a great day and we had a wonderful time.
