That said, our house tour was with Freddie, and she was amazing - really lovely and informative we very much enjoyed her and the tour. So I'd say maybe don't depend on that number or email. I ended up buying a second set of tickets (totaling $200 for three people for two tours), and after four days of not hearing back, asked for the refund at the ticket counter, which they gave me without any problems. Well, I emailed and called 5 times each (plus reached out on Facebook and Twitter) and didn't get a response. I saw on the site and in the confirmation email that you could get a refund or rescheduled date by calling their number or emailing. One hiccup: We made a reservation for a Tuesday, but when an atmospheric river came through our area, it was too treacherous to drive (San Jose is more than an hour from our house). Most of us want to get home construction over as soon as possible.We took my mom on her 82th birthday, and overall we had a great time. We worry about the expense and complain about the inconvenience. For 38 years, she had construction going 24 hours a day at her home in San Jose, Calif.īut for Sarah Winchester, construction was a way of life. This was no ordinary construction job, though the house is an oddball labyrinth of rooms that at one point reached seven stories. And I haven't even mentioned the ghosts. It's filled with weird things like stairs and doors that go nowhere. Sarah Winchester didn't always want to build a haunted mansion. ![]() Born in 1839, Sarah Pardee was one of the social stars of New Haven, Conn. Although she only stood 4 feet 10 inches, she was known for her beauty and her sparkling personality. In 1862, Sarah married William Winchester, who was the heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The company had developed the repeating rifle, a gun that was easy to reload and fired rapidly, at a rate of one shot every three seconds. The gun was used by Northern troops in the Civil War and was also known as "the gun that won the West". The young couple started a family in 1866, but their daughter, Annie, died in infancy, a blow that Mrs. Winchester died of tuberculosis 15 years later. Distraught over these losses, she visited a medium for spiritual guidance. The medium told her that the Winchester family had been struck by a terrible curse and was haunted by the ghosts of all those killed by the Winchester rifle. Their spirits were seeking vengeance, and the only way to appease them was to build a house for them. The ghosts had another request: that the house never be completed. Never stop building, the medium told Mrs. We can't know exactly how she interpreted this advice she might have thought the spirits would get her if she stopped, or she might have seen continuous construction as a path to eternal life. Winchester headed west to build a home for herself and her ghosts. ![]() She bought a six-room farmhouse on 162 acres in California and set to work building, a task that would occupy her until her death 38 years later. Photo courtesy Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA But how did she end up with such a weird house? Why did she construct stairs that went nowhere and doors that opened into walls? Find out on the next page. Winchester served as her own architect, but it's possible that some ghosts had a hand in designing the house as well. Winchester would retreat to her séance room and receive instruction from the spirits on the progress of her house. The next morning, she'd present her construction workers with hand-drawn sketches of what was to be done. Sometimes it seemed she didn't care what she built, as long as she could hear the hammers of her crew. The crew might spend a month constructing a room, only to be ordered to destroy it the next month. Winchester paid well, no one disputed her instructions. Winchester had inherited $20 million and just less than half of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company stock. Winchester with a daily income of about $1,000 to spend on her house. ![]() (Multiply those figures by about 20 to get an idea of how much money that would be in 2008. )īut what of these doors and stairs to nowhere? Doors may open onto walls, or in the case of a second story door, to the outside, resulting in a big fall for anyone who might try to exit that way. A closet door in the second floor séance room opens onto a first-floor sink several feet below.
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