The Curse of the Winchester Family. Mystical Winchester House in San Jose, California Winchester House in California

One of the most mysterious and mystical houses on earth is the famous Winchester house in California in the USA. This is the most famous attraction of the small city of San Jose, which is visited by a huge number of tourists from all over the world. The history of the house is closely connected with the fate of its owner Sarah Winchester, whose maiden name was Sarah Lockwood Purdy.

Sarah Lockwood Purdy was born in Connecticut around 1840 into a respectable family. The girl received good education, was smart, beautiful and talented - she played the piano, knew four languages, was erudite and loved art. In 1862, Sarah married the son of state vice president William Winchester. The husband's father was the same manufacturer of the famous Winchester rifles that decided the outcome of the bloody Civil War in the USA. The sale of weapons brought a stable income, which made it possible for several more generations of this family to live without problems.

The marriage was extremely successful, the couple were happy, rich and young. They enjoyed their love, moved in the highest circles of society, lived life to the fullest... This lasted about four years, until the Winchester family's little daughter Annie died in 1866. It is believed that the fault was fatal disease, but the exact cause of death was never established. Sarah was so shocked by her daughter's death that she fell into a deep depression from which she could not escape for the rest of her life. Moreover, after some time she learned that she could no longer have children. All that remained was love for her husband, but in 1881 William, still quite young, died of tuberculosis, and Sarah completely went crazy.

The widow was left with an inheritance of twenty million dollars and a constant income, but she had already lost her taste for life. The woman no longer communicated with relatives and friends, slept poorly and began to look for the cause of her misfortunes. As often happens, people in such a state turn to otherworldly forces. Sarah decided to attend a seance, which was popular at the time, and ask the spirits for advice. One of the most famous mediums in Boston gave her a session that predetermined her future fate. The medium claimed that the spirits named the reason for Sarah's misfortunes - these were strong Indian curses placed on the family due to the murders with Winchester rifles. After the death of the girl and William Winchester, Sarah herself should have died, but there is one way to avoid this. To do this, it was necessary to go in search of a new house in the West - the signs should suggest the right place where you need to start building a house, and build it constantly, continuously. If the sounds of construction cease in the house, Sarah will certainly die.

The medium was cunning man, he knew how to act in such a situation. He gave the woman an answer that she immediately believed. He sent her away so that she would not return to him. He gave her new idea, which must have occupied her thoughts. Perhaps he really saved Sarah's life, because after this session she was not tormented by depressive thoughts, but by less destructive thoughts - about building a house.

Sarah immediately hit the road, intending to get to California, where her niece lived. But along the way, she found a great place for a home - an unfinished farm near the city of San Jose. She bought this house and the land around it and began construction as the spirits advised. Thus was built a huge, strange and mysterious house known as the Winchester house.

Mrs. Winchester hired a team of builders and set the condition to work around the clock, in several shifts. Twenty-four hours a day, twenty-two carpenters were constantly building the house. Soon the farm turned into an eight-room mansion, but Sarah had no intention of stopping. New rooms appeared, wings were added, new floors were erected. By the end of the nineteenth century, it was an eight-story absurd building that frightened neighbors with its appearance. Mrs. Winchester was called strange, but she inspired respect among the city's residents.

The woman paid the builders generously, she did not skimp on new household goods, for which she was also respected. It provided jobs for many local residents and even their children. Surprisingly, in some cases, even the grandchildren of the first workers participated in the construction several decades later. Sarah was supported by the thought of building a house, and she really did not die - she was completely busy with repairs, construction, and improvement of new rooms. Of course, she did not have a construction plan, since Sarah Winchester did not contact architects. When it was time to build a new room or corridor, she herself drew their plans, sometimes even on napkins that came to hand. Most of these ideas were spontaneous, sometimes they changed radically. For example, one painter said that Mrs. Winchester first demanded that one room be painted red, and when the work was completed, she ordered everything to be repainted white. She changed the floors in the rooms, constantly rearranging something.

Sarah had no idea about architecture, so many of her ideas were completely disastrous. In this case, she was assisted by construction manager John Hansen, who had an excellent understanding of construction. He didn't argue with his mistress, he just tried to do everything as best as possible. In the mornings, Mrs. Winchester told him about the plans for the day, about what needed to be rearranged and remade. Her orders were completely illogical and strange, but they were carried out. In addition, she did not set restrictions or give clear deadlines - the working conditions were ideal.

To expand the house, Sarah bought new plots of land. For thirty-eight years construction was carried out continuously, day and night. Today it is unknown exactly how many rooms were built in the house during this period; it is assumed that approximately 500-600 - many were subsequently destroyed. Now the house has 160 rooms, 16 bathrooms, 40 staircases, two thousand doors, 6 kitchens, ten thousand windows and 47 fireplaces. Of course, Sarah Winchester herself did not need all this - but the spirits did. For example, it was believed that spirits entered the house through chimneys. Also, the woman did not buy mirrors, because spirits, according to many, do not like to pass by them because they are not reflected - and who would like another reminder that you are inanimate. Therefore, the woman even forbade the use of mirrors, and she herself kept small mirrors in her pockets and took them out only when necessary. It is also known that Sarah slept in different rooms every day in order to evil spirits couldn't find her. However, the servants also had a hard time - when the mistress called them using the bell, they looked at the diagram of the house. The light in the room from which the call was made would light up, and all that was left was to walk through the labyrinth of corridors to get to it.

A ballroom was built in the Winchester house, the construction of which cost about nine thousand dollars. In those days it was a lot of money - for one thousand dollars you could build nice house for the family. Sarah, who always loved music, installed a pipe organ in this hall and often played it. Later, when Mrs. Winchester grew old and had arthritis in her fingers, she could no longer play it. But the servants claimed that during the mistress’s seances they heard the sounds of an organ. Sarah was fond of spiritualistic seances until her death; for this purpose, a special hall was equipped, which could be accessed through a secret passage from the Ballroom. In this room there were the necessary equipment for spiritualism, chairs, and thirteen hooks with clothes hung on the wall different colors. The door to the room was hidden in the closet.

In 1906 it happened strong earthquake which destroyed part of the house and damaged it appearance. The room in which Sarah slept that night was locked - the woman was able to get out of it only after a few hours with the help of servants. Sarah was shocked, but quickly came to her senses and ordered the restoration of the Ballroom and other rooms. She decided not to touch the upper floors - everything above the third floor was destroyed, and the woman considered this a sign that the height of the house should be lower. Today, the Winchester house has five floors (in the towers, and three in the main house).

Today the Winchester house is a popular tourist attraction. It is forbidden to move around the house independently, and guides always warn that no one lags behind the group. It is very easy to get lost in the mansion, in addition, there are traps and unexpected obstacles, for example, doors behind which there is no floor or there is a wall. There are staircases that lead to half-stairs, or very narrow staircases that fat people cannot walk down. Interesting features There are a lot of them in the house, most of them are connected with stairs. Some stairs are too shallow - for example, 42 steps to climb one floor. Others, on the contrary, are very steep - only strong and dexterous people can climb it. There is a strange staircase that first goes down a few steps and then goes up. When Sarah Winchester grew old and could not climb stairs, an elevator was installed in the house.

The windows of the house are also interesting, of which, as already mentioned, there are about ten thousand. These are not simple windows - all were ordered from the famous Tiffany workshop, and designed by the owner herself. Sarah Winchester was especially fond of the spider web window grilles, which she designed herself. Many windows do not lead to the street at all, but to completely unexpected places: into other rooms, into walls. The stained glass windows that were made in Austria are especially beautiful - their designs are incomprehensible and strange, but have high artistic value. The most expensive stained glass window was supposed to fill the room with all the colors of the rainbow, but it was installed on the north side of the house. Some stained glass windows are inlaid with precious stones.

The house has many secret passages and hidden doors. The servants were often frightened when the mistress silently came out of unexpected places and they said that she could walk through walls. Until now, no one knows exactly all the features of the house: dormer windows, strange doors, peepholes, secret corridors.

The park near the Victorian-style house is also interesting. Sarah Winchester ordered plants and trees from all over the world: persimmons, pines, chestnuts from England and even rare species grew here. There were about ten gardeners working in the park. The owner allowed the neighbor's children to walk in the park and did not fence it. The city administration sometimes held various events dedicated to charity there. Sarah Winchester herself sponsored them. She was a well-known philanthropist: she donated money for home improvements, the construction of orphanages, and hospitals.

Sarah Winchester died in her sleep at the age of 82 from cardiac arrest. She was buried next to her husband, but afterward many claimed to have seen her ghost in the house.

The state of California, USA, is now an extravagant tourist attraction.

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Story

In 1884, the house was purchased by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester, son of Oliver Winchester, inventor famous rifle. After her husband's death, Sarah had an audience with a medium in Boston who "communicated with the spirit of her late husband." The spirit of the deceased allegedly reported that Sarah’s misadventures (the death of her only daughter shortly after birth, relatively early death William) are related to the fact that the family is cursed with those killed by the rifle created by his father. In order to avoid further problems, a woman must build a special house in which spirits cannot harm her. Following the advice of a medium, Sarah purchased a house on the West Coast.

Being a very wealthy woman, the widow invested all her multi-million dollar fortune to rebuild a house. At the same time, she did not resort to the services of professionals, changing the house according to her own plans. The house reached six floors, but after the earthquake in 1906, the top three floors collapsed. However, the owner continued the work, the house now became three-story, as it remains to this day. All of Sarah's funds were spent on construction. After her death on September 5, 1922, only strands of hair from her late daughter and husband were found in the safe. In this case, the House of Winchester is considered scary place(in the sense that spirits still roam this mansion).

Description

The house is set up so that the spirits haunting Sarah will become confused when trying to find the widow. That's why there are a lot of dead-end doors that open into walls and stairs that go up into ceilings. The corridors in the building are very narrow, especially since the widow was miniature and could easily move through this labyrinth. Some of the doors on the upper floors open outward, and many walls have secret windows. The number 13 is often found - almost all stairs have 13 steps, and many rooms have 13 windows.

Currently, the house has about 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 stairs. The rooms have 2,000 doors, 450 doorways, about 10,000 windows (stained glass windows have survived to this day), 47 fireplaces and one shower.

View of the house from the south (circa 1906)

In 2015, Walter Magnuson became the new senior caretaker of the Winchester House, located on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, USA. When he came to see this famous, peculiar mansion, he asked the guides to show him everything. "I wanted to see what was behind closed doors, I wanted to see the corridors that were dark. “I started asking questions about everything,” Magnuson says. “They told me: “You see, many of these rooms can only be opened with master keys, only one guide has the keys.”

He eventually gained access to the secret rooms, and what he found was astonishing and lived up to the house's eccentric reputation. Some rooms were missing floorboards, others were seriously damaged by the 1906 earthquake and were closed. There were also some amazing finds. Magnuson saw wallpaper that seemed gem, scattered sunlight into tiny spheres, rows of stained glass windows set at waist height for some reason, and secret balconies that offered views of gabled rooftops. “The house kept revealing more and more secrets,” says Magnuson, who previously held leadership position at Disneyland. - Some of the rooms raised a lot of questions: what was the purpose of the room? Who stayed here? What was Sarah thinking?

Magnuson wanted to make these rooms available to the public, but long-time staff asked that a number of them remain closed. “Some people supported me,” explains Magnuson. “Others liked the idea that only employees knew about certain premises.” However, Magnuson's vision prevailed. He decided to restore the front wing of the house and make it open to the public.

Inside the tower in the north wing

One of the first things that immediately catches your eye when you approach the Winchester House is the front door, which is not aligned with the peak of the roof above it; it is slightly shifted to the right. This may seem like an insignificant detail to some, but it hints at the chaos that reigns inside. This 160-room architectural oddity was designed by Sarah Winchester, widow of arms magnate William Winchester. Sarah was a secretive and eccentric woman. This mansion on Californian soil took more than 30 years to build. Legend has it that Sarah did this to calm or confuse the souls of people killed by Winchester rifles. Inspecting a house is strangely similar to meeting the woman who built it - and no horror stories are needed, because her creativity and ambition are amazing even without them.

Sarah Winchester inherited $20 million upon her husband's death in 1881. Shortly thereafter, she moved from New Haven, Connecticut, to an eight-room farmhouse with orchard in the Santa Clara Valley. She began construction work almost immediately. The dedicated team of carpenters skipped drawing plans and immediately began building new rooms. Sarah herself didn't hesitate to make unorthodox building decisions - a staircase leading to a wall, a closet about an inch deep, a door leading to nowhere. After Sarah's death in 1922, the house was rented by businessman John Brown, who dubbed it a tourist attraction and bought it outright some time later. Since then, the mansion has become a favorite place for curious Americans. More than 12 million people visited it.

Apart from the servants, few people saw the interior of the house during Sarah Winchester's lifetime. She was trying to move on from the death of her husband and daughter Annie, who died of illness in infancy. For the most part, no one was even allowed to take photographs of him. “One story goes that Theodore Roosevelt, while passing through San Jose, wanted to meet the Widow Winchester,” Magnuson says. “He knocked on the front door, but no one let him in.” The eccentricity of Sarah, who led an isolated lifestyle, and stories about ghosts could not but affect the history of the house. What is most striking, however, is the extraordinary artistic freedom she took in creating the house, and the lengths to which her staff are willing to go today to keep the mysterious mansion intact.

Aerial view of the house

For decades, visitors followed the same tour route through a hundred rooms. It began in the courtyard, then explored the entrance hall and spaces such as the wood-panelled Venetian Dining Room and the Grand Ballroom, where Sarah Winchester installed stained glass windows with encrypted quotes from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and Richard II.

Magnuson thought it was a good idea to open the new premises to visitors. His restoration plan began to be implemented in August 2016. After ten months of hard work, in May 2017, 40 secret rooms, including those rarely seen even by staff, were open to the public.

According to Michael Taff, head of the home's operations and maintenance team, the work was primarily aimed at making the new premises safe. “We've actually made a lot of changes,” he says. - We had raw mahogany; it had to be treated and sealed with plaster.” Rusty nails were replaced, earthquake damage was repaired, and missing floorboards were added.

Reception

The biggest effort went into restoring one attic, according to longtime house historian Janan Boehme, who helped with restoration plans. “Basically, there was only a platform with holes. The stairs had no railings. In general, there was no question of safety,” she says. “You could easily fall into one of the holes.” The home's operations and maintenance team had to construct a wooden platform.

All this work was necessary - partly because Sarah Winchester had almost completely abandoned the front wing of the house after the earthquake. “She just stopped construction at that location,” Taff says. “It is impossible to determine exactly what the rooms looked like before the earthquake.” However, various clues helped us - a piece of glossy tile here, a piece of wallpaper there. One of the restored rooms, the dining room, features period furniture and wallpaper that was once popular among wealthy Victorians. The earthquake severely damaged the wallpaper, so workers had to restore it using surviving samples. (The dining room was not included in the new tour itinerary, but is available for special events.)

Damage caused by the 1906 earthquake

After the restoration, some intriguing details remained. Near front door there is a room with bare walls, inside of which there is a storage room. “Sarah often carved out small spaces from what already existed,” Boehme explains. There is also an empty fireplace not far from the entrance. After the earthquake, Winchester removed the shelves above the fireplaces and encased the brick chimneys in metal, presumably to prevent them from falling apart in the next disaster.

The grand staircase leads to a Tiffany-style stained glass window that no doubt once bathed the space in colorful rays. However, it was later completely closed off by a new outer wall, apparently built at the request of Sarah Winchester.

And although the house has a reputation as a "dim labyrinth", there are 10 thousand glass windows, which speaks to Sarah's desire to fill it with natural light.

Crystal Bedroom

The landing opens onto a series of finished and unfinished rooms, including the Crystal Bedroom with pale yellow wallpaper. One of the reasons this room has been closed for many years is concern that sunlight would ruin the wallpaper. Therefore, there is a possibility that it will be sealed again.

An old photograph of the house hangs in the room, showing a milky white ghost in the front window. The staff gives vague explanations on the subject of ghosts, but is willing to share the experiences of others. "There are people who really love paranormal phenomena. They've heard many stories about this place and want to test their veracity for themselves, Magnuson says. “They might feel a little tap on the shoulder or something like that.” One of Sarah's servants, Clyde, apparently still continues to work here; some visitors see him with a wheelbarrow from time to time.”

Tuff says, "When you're in the house, you feel like you're not alone."

“But at least they are friendly,” adds Boehme.

“Yeah, I never feel afraid,” agrees Tuff.

Corridor

Reports of ghosts, myths about Sarah Winchester herself and the enthusiasm of the staff all create an atmosphere of suggestibility. The new Sarah Winchester film also plays on this idea, as do a number of changes made to the house. Tuff, who used to work at a theme park, is well versed in this kind of theatrics. He and his team recently perfected a sound recording that reproduces the sounds of the earthquake that hit the house in 1906. It destroyed the tower and kept Sarah trapped in the Daisy Bedroom for several hours. “Here she is,” says Boehme. - Full-length.” A loud roar comes from the speaker in the next bedroom and the floor begins to shake. The sounds of breaking glass and dishes are heard, interspersed with a crash. Instability is always present.

In the Daisy Bedroom (included in the original tour), Sarah Winchester rang the bell to summon the servants, who could not find her in the chaos. Here, to this day, the cracked walls and torn wallpaper remain intact, as well as the panels of stained glass flowers that gave the room its name. “How would you feel if you were suddenly awakened by an earthquake? - asks Boehme. “You feel like the whole world is collapsing around you.” After Sarah was finally rescued, she left the mansion and lived for a time on a houseboat in the San Francisco Bay. Perhaps this helped her overcome her own fears.

Witch's Cap in the South Tower

Remains of a seven-story tower destroyed during the 1906 earthquake - decorative elements, railings and trim are stored in the attic. To ensure visitors can see them, Taff's team equipped it with a variety of handrails and stabilizing bars. Next, the path leads to the Witch's Cap in the South Tower - this is the highlight of the new tour. To reach it, you must pass through a narrow corridor, which is barely 1.5 meters high. It has random windows that let in light, but visitors still find it difficult to navigate the space because the walls are too close together.

The Witch's Hood is an unfinished circular room with mahogany beams. If you stand in the very center of the tower, your voice will bounce off the walls in a strange way. Boehme says one psychic described the room as a great place for readings. And this is reportedly what attracted Harry Houdini to the house in 1924, however he had no interest in communicating with the dead, he only wanted to prove that the practice was nonsense. No one knows what happened, but Houdini found the visit very memorable and sent a newspaper clipping about it to the owner of the house.

Entrance to the basement

There are suggestions that Winchester did have an interest in the supernatural. This is evidenced by the stained glass cobwebs and tribute to the number 13 (windows with 13 panes, ceilings with 13 panels and staircases with 13 steps). Such views were not unusual at the time. IN late XIX and the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a surge in spiritualism throughout the country. “The Civil War was a good reason for this,” says Boehme. - All these women, they lost their husbands, sons, brothers, fathers. They were sad and desperate." Winchester also faced the loss of her entire family.

However, the main legend associated with the house - that it is haunted by the ghosts of people killed with a Winchester rifle - was invented not so much by Sarah, but by the original promoters of the house and the psychic Susie Smith, who wrote a book in 1967 called Famous American Ghosts " Boehme believes that the legend cannot explain Sarah Winchester's unusual building ideas. “At that time, guns were looked at differently. It was a vital necessity,” she says. - There were many stories about Sarah in those days. She didn't really want to deal with the press because they wrote a lot of bad things about her." Perhaps it was her silence that fueled various rumors.

Winchester family grave in Connecticut

Boehme sees the Winchester mansion more as a result artistic work, rather than trying to appease the ghosts. Local historian Mary Jo Ignoffo agrees. “This concept of gun guilt arose from the progressive social ideals prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century,” she writes in Captive of the Labyrinth, the first full biography Sarah Winchester. - It is unlikely that Sarah Winchester felt responsible or guilty for making firearms, which killed people."

However, house promoters and Hollywood are well aware that the tragedy is a real Lady Macbeth, who wanted to erase the bloody stain from her family, sells better. However, it also helped save the house. “Without those legends, I don't think the house would be here anymore,” Taff says. “They would have demolished it.”

Sarah Winchester in a carriage

However, these stories somewhat obscure who Sarah Winchester really was. Although she did not like publicity, she was more attached to real world, not spiritual. By all accounts of the home's staff, she was a creative virtuous woman who was suffering deep personal loss. “Sarah invested in what she cared about,” Boehme says. “She paid her workers more than the standard wage and kept them for many years, in part because she wanted to provide them with a livelihood.” Ignoffo speculates that she threw herself into the building project to feel closer to her late husband - architecture was one of William Winchester's longtime passions.

Team of carpenters

Was the House of Winchester a "magnum opus" or the product of a restless mind? Or perhaps both? Be that as it may, what was once built for the eyes of one person has now become public knowledge. “Most of the attention is focused on Sarah's most eccentric qualities and the secrets surrounding her,” Magnuson says. “I think this is necessary to understand what a wonderful woman she was.”

As soon as you leave the well-kept grounds of the house, you will immediately stumble upon the polished facade of a fashionable shopping center, built across the road. And you will understand that there is a certain comfort in the labyrinths and hidden rooms of the house, there is freedom in its oddities, and greatness in its abstractions. It's also awe-inspiring to realize that Sarah Winchester hid some of the rooms so well that no one has seen them for over a hundred years. “There may be more rooms that we haven't discovered yet because we don't have the blueprints,” Magnuson says. There's some consolation in the fact that in Silicon Valley, there are still secrets - and a lot of questions that don't really need answers.

In life, all sorts of strange things happen. For example, the Winchester house. It is located in San Jose (California, USA) at 525 South Winchester Blvd. This is not even a house, but a huge mansion built in the Victorian style. It is noteworthy that the construction was carried out without any architectural plan. It was just that other rooms were chaotically added to the original building and new floors were erected. Currently this building is privately owned, serves as a tourist attraction, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the history of the famous house? It began in 1884 and is inextricably linked with a woman named Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester. The latter was the son of Oliver Winchester, the inventor of the world famous rifle.

William died of tuberculosis in 1881, and Sarah inherited more than $20.5 million. She also received 50% ownership of the Winchester Arms Company, which gave her an income of $1 thousand per day. This is equivalent to $23 thousand in 2013. The woman invested all this enormous wealth in building a house. And her communication with a medium in Boston prompted her to do this.

He said that the death of his daughter almost immediately after birth and the early death of his husband are inextricably linked with the souls of people who died from a rifle invented by Oliver Winchester. A curse has fallen on the family, from which there is only one way to get rid of it: it is necessary to start building a house for the souls of the murdered. While the construction continues, the souls will not dare to disturb the widow.

Sarah took the medium's words extremely seriously. In 1884, she moved to California and bought an unfinished 8-room house in the Santa Clara Valley. Construction began immediately after the purchase was completed. The widow hired carpenters, and they began to work around the clock. The woman did not invite architects, so extensions to the building were erected without any system.

This is what the Winchester house looks like today

Over the years, the Winchester house has turned out to contain many oddities. It has doors and stairs that lead nowhere, windows overlooking other rooms, and extremely narrow corridors. Sarah considered the number 13 to be magical, so most of the stairs in the house have 13 steps, and the 13th bathroom has 13 mirrors. The 13th sink has 13 drain holes. In addition, many rooms have 13 windows. There are 13 palm trees along the access road to the main entrance. The woman divided her posthumous will into 13 chapters and signed it 13 times.

A bell tower was erected near the house. It was possible to get into it only by a ladder. During the widow's lifetime, the bell rang every midnight. With its ringing, it summoned the spirits of people killed by hard drives. After 2 hours, the bell rang again, inviting the spirits to leave the gathering place. All this, naturally, aroused great interest among both local residents and visitors. At the same time, there was a very high turnover among builders, despite high wages. The people's psyche simply could not withstand the gloomy mystical component that was constantly present around.

By 1906, the mansion became 6-story. But an earthquake occurred, and the building was saved only by the floating foundation. Only the top 3 floors collapsed. However, this did not stop Sarah. Construction work continued, and the house became 3-story. This is how he remains to this day.

Inside the Winchester house

In total, construction lasted 38 years until the death of the widow on September 5, 1922. The work was carried out around the clock, without stopping for a minute. As soon as the woman died, work immediately stopped. After Sarah, the house remained with 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 staircases, 47 fireplaces, 2 thousand doors, 450 doorways and approximately 10 thousand windows. It should also be taken into account that during the widow’s lifetime the house was not only destroyed, but also constantly rebuilt. More than 600 rooms were built and destroyed.

Sarah Winchester bequeathed all the property, except the house, to her niece, who acted as personal secretary. The heiress took out all the furniture and belongings and sold them at auction. The Winchester house itself was valued at $135,000 and sold at auction to a local investor. He leased it for 10 years to the Brown husband and wife. They opened it to the public in February 1923, 5 months after the death of the widow. In 1924, Harry Houdini visited the mansion. When the lease expired, the Brown family bought the house. These days the famous mansion belongs to private company, representing the Brown family.

The home retains unique touches that reflect Sarah's belief in evil spirits and her desire to avoid contact with them. For example, an expensive chandelier that previously had 12 candlesticks now has 13. There are exactly 13 hooks on clothes hangers. A stained glass window with patterns contains 13 color stones. The drain covers on the sinks have 13 holes. Every Friday the 13th the bell rings 13 times at exactly 13:00. So the tribute to the strange lady is fully paid.

Sarah Winchester, born Sarah Lockwood Purdy, widow of William Winchester, died in September 1922, aged 85. There was no money in the safe of the heiress of the arms empire. There were only locks of hair, men's and children's, and the death certificates of the husband and daughter, as well as a will of 13 clauses, signed 13 times. And there is still the mysterious unfinished Winchester House. The will was silent about the fate of this house number 525 on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California...

Now it has become a popular tourist attraction. Inspired Stephen King to write the novel on which the film Rose Red Mansion was based. And it acquired a strong reputation as a “haunted house.”

Actually, it all started with ghosts.

Young Sarah Purdy would have laughed if anyone had told her that she would have a ghostly tea party every night for thirty-odd years. The life of the Pardee girl was reasonable and successful. She was 25 when she married William in 1862, the son of “that same” Oliver Winchester, whose multi-shot production is said to have decided the outcome of the American Civil War.

The family rapidly grew rich from military orders, the newlyweds lived in love and prosperity. Petite as a doll, not even one and a half meters tall, but nevertheless the lovely Mrs. Winchester was the soul of society in New Haven, Connecticut. But four years after the wedding, a misfortune struck the family - their daughter Annie died shortly after birth.

Sarah almost went crazy with grief, and only ten years later, as they say, she came to her senses. The Winchester couple had no other children. In 1881, William Winchester died of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah a widow with an inheritance of $20 million and a daily income of $1,000 (she received half of the firm's profits). Mrs. Winchester was inconsolable. Trying to understand why fate was punishing her so cruelly, she went to Boston to see a medium.

The medium communicated with the spirit of William Winchester for a modest fee. The spirit ordered Sarah to be told that the family bears the curse of those who died from high-quality Winchester products. He also said that to save her own life, Sarah must move west, towards sunset, and stop at the place that will be indicated to her and begin building a house. Construction must not stop; If the hammering stops, Mrs. Winchester will die.

Inspired by this prophecy, collecting her belongings and saying goodbye forever old life, the widow headed west. In 1884, she reached San Jose, where, according to her assurances, the spirit of her husband told her to stop. She bought the house and set about renovating and expanding it. Sarah Winchester did this obsessively for 38 years in a row, without resorting to the services of professional architects.

The result of her labors has not reached us in full. Now Winchester House has three floors. It has approximately 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 stairs. The rooms have 2,000 doors, 450 doorways, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces. An architect who tries to discover logic in the design of a house must be struck by neurosis. And if we consider the house a reflection of the owner’s soul, then any psychiatrist would not have doubted for a second the diagnosis of Winchester’s widow.

The house was built to confuse the spirits that would come after Mrs. Winchester. That's why the doors, and even the windows, open into the walls,

and the stairs reach the ceilings.

The corridors and passages are narrow and winding, like snake loops.

Some doors on the upper floors open outward, so that an inattentive guest will fall straight into the courtyard, into the bushes; others are designed so that, after passing the flight, the guest must fall into the kitchen sink on the floor below or break through a window built into the floor of the lower floor.

View of the “Door to Nowhere” from the inside and outside:

Many bathroom doors are transparent.

Secret doors and windows open in the walls, through which you can quietly observe what is happening in the neighboring rooms.

The window located in the floor directly above the kitchen is impressive. Through it, the suspicious housewife could watch the cooks preparing food downstairs. By the way, the cooks and all kitchen workers were strictly forbidden to look up - under pain of immediate dismissal - in case the mistress of the house was standing and watching them. It is not known for sure whether spirits visited the house, but Lady Sarah undoubtedly knew how to keep people in it under the highest degree of tension.

The skeptic will note that these numerous spirit traps, as simple as bear pits, betray the metaphysical ignorance of an elderly widow. The mystical symbolism of the house smacks of simple-minded directness. All stairs except one are made up of 13 steps. Many rooms have 13 windows. Luxurious stained glass windows from Tiffany consist of 13 segments...Each curtain is attached to the rods of the cornice with 13 rings. Thirteen elements can be found everywhere in the house - in rugs, chandeliers, even in drain holes. Even the petals of numerous daisy rosettes on the wooden wall paneling count the same 13 petals. The abundance of fireplaces in the house is explained by the fact that, according to legend, spirits could enter the house through chimneys.

No other guests were expected here, and, apparently, Sarah was quite content with her own ideas about the other world. Precious Tiffany stained glass windows poured their ghostly light everywhere from numerous windows, creating a mystical atmosphere, separating the gloomy world of the house from the living life outside its walls.

Two stained glass windows on the windows of the ballroom, which became favorite place ghosts, decorated with Shakespearean lines, but why exactly they were chosen by Sarah for the windows remains unknown. On the left window “Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts” - from Troilus and Cressida, and on the right “These same thoughts people this little world” from “Richard II”.

Everything in the house was adjusted to the owner's standards. The steps are low so that a sick old woman could climb them without difficulty. To lean on the railing, you have to bend down - Sarah was short. The corridors and passages are very narrow - Sarah was thin.

It is unknown whether Jorge Luis Borges knew about the existence of this house, and Mrs. Winchester certainly could not read his works. But the house, the designs of which the hostess drew on a napkin at breakfast, seems to be the embodiment of the writer’s fantasies. The Minotaur could live here. Sarah Winchester was sure that spirits lived here. Every midnight a gong sounded, and the hostess retired to a special room for a seance.

During these hours, the servants heard the sounds of the organ in the ballroom, which the hostess, who was ill with arthritis, could not play. Apparently, this was played by invisible guests who arrived through the fireplace in the ballroom.

By 1906, the house had grown to more than six floors (it is difficult to accurately determine its height, due to the complex labyrinth of roofs, turrets, roof ledges and terraces).

But an earthquake occurred and the top three floors collapsed. Mistress, afraid of persecution evil spirits, slept in a new place every night, and after the earthquake the servants, who did not know where she was this time, did not immediately find her under the rubble. Sarah interpreted the incident as a spirit invasion at the front of the house. The 30 unfinished rooms were locked and boarded up and construction continued. Unsuccessful fragments were destroyed and new ones were built in their place.

Until her last breath, the owner of the house demanded that construction continue. Stocks of boards, beams, doors and stained glass windows still occupy the empty rooms of the labyrinth house, which has become a huge attraction for tourists. She died on a heavy antique bed, in a room now shown as "Sarah Winchester's last bedroom."

The massive headboard is decorated with a mirror that seems like a window into the other world. Maybe she saw something in him at the hour of her death. Perhaps she is still following through him the endless excursions exploring her possessions, multiplying and continuing her story, similar to an urban legend, but nevertheless, the real truth.

Children quickly begin to get tired and capricious in the tangled labyrinths of this gloomy house. It seems that the numerous ghostly guests of the Winchester House have been joined by its crazy owner, who still jealously does not want to see strangers here and refuses to be captured in the photograph.

In the end, she once refused President Roosevelt himself, who wanted to receive an invitation to her for a cup of tea. You can't deny her character and obstinacy. After all, she for many years challenged the other world, the legacy of the empire of the Winchester arms barons.