Winchester Mystery House
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Winchester Mystery House
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View of the mansion from the southeast
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| Location | 525 South Winchester Boulevard San Jose, CA 95128 |
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| Coordinates | 37°19′6.10″N 121°57′2.74″W / 37.3183611°N 121.9507611°WCoordinates: 37°19′6.10″N 121°57′2.74″W / 37.3183611°N 121.9507611°W |
| Built | 1884-1922 |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne Style Late Victorian |
| NRHP Reference # | 74000559 |
| CHISL # | 868 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | August 7, 1974 |
| Designated CHISL | 1974 |
The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, which was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. Located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, the Queen Anne Style Victorian mansion is renowned for its size, its architectural curiosities, and its lack of any master building plan. It is a designated California historical landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is privately owned and serves as a tourist attraction.
Ever since the construction commenced in 1884, the property and mansion were claimed by many, including Winchester herself, to be haunted by the ghosts of those killed with Winchester rifles. Under Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around the clock, by some accounts, without interruption, until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. Sarah Winchester's biographer, however, claims that Winchester "routinely dismissed workers for months at a time 'to take such rest as I might'" and notes that "this flies in the face of claims by today's Mystery House proprietors that work at the ranch was ceaseless for thirty-eight years."
After her husband's death from tuberculosis in 1881, Sarah Winchester inherited more than $20.5 million. She also received nearly fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, equivalent to about $23,000 a day in 2013. These inheritances gave her a tremendous amount of wealth which she used to fund the ongoing construction.
Tabloids from the time claimed that at some point after her infant daughter and husband both died a Boston medium told her, while supposedly channeling her late husband, that she should leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles. Winchester left New Haven and headed for California. Though it is possible she was simply seeking a change of location and a hobby during her lengthy depression, other sources claim that Winchester came to believe her family and fortune were haunted by ghosts, and that only by moving West and continuously building them a house could she appease these spirits.
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Wikipedia