In 1924, Harry Houdini visited a rambling architectural oddity in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley.
Though a magician by trade, Houdini was devoted, at this time in his life, to debunking what he considered a scourge of fake spiritualists and mediums.
Winchester House -a massive estate, partially demolished by the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, had a reputation for being haunted—and not even Houdini himself could shake the sense that something inside those walls was wrong.
Picking up on some popular nicknames of the day, Houdini dubbed the building “Winchester Mystery House” after the late Sarah Winchester, the secretive woman who built and lived in it. A Bay Area brand was born, but as it turns out, the most curious object inside the mansion was actually Sarah Winchester herself.
She was also considered to be quite beautiful. All of this earned her the title of “The Belle of New Haven” among New Haven society and was well-received at all social events thanks to her sparkling charm and her beauty.
New Haven is the home of Yale University (Yale College during her lifetime). The school’s progressive thinking and activities were not lost on her.
She was admitted to Yale’s female scholastic institution, the ‘Young Ladies Collegiate Institute’ at a young age. She studied the liberal arts, the sciences, and mathematics.
Sarah married gun magnate William Winchester.
Sarah and William traveled in the same social circles.
His sister was Sarah’s classmate at college and both families attended the same church.
The couple married on September, at the height of the civil war in 1862.
They welcomed a daughter, Annie Pardee Winchester, on July 12, 1866.
Their daughter contracted an illness known as “marasmus” -a form of severe malnutrition characterized by protein deficiency and Annie died 40 days later .
Sarah was so shattered by this event that she withdrew into herself and teetered on the edge of madness for some time.
In the end, it would be nearly a decade before she returned to her normal self but she and William would never have a another child.
William was the son of Oliver Winchester, who founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven, Connecticut.
His pride and joy was the revolutionary Winchester repeating rifle, one of the first guns to fire rounds repeatedly, taking away the cumbersome need to stop and reload.
It quickly became an icon of the American frontier – used by cowboys, Native Americans, outlaws, sheriffs and even President Theodore Roosevelt.
As the settlers went steadily westwards after the civil war, the Winchester was their weapon of choice – it became known as the Gun that Won the West, celebrated in celluloid numerous times by John Wayne and the youthful Jimmy Stewart.
It was even used by the Turks in their 19th-century battles against the Russians, and by the Mexicans in their uprising against the French-backed emperor, the Winchester became known around the world.
The company also developed the Henry Rifle, which had a tubular magazine located under the barrel.
Because it was easy to reload and could fire rapidly, and was said to average one shot every three seconds.
It became the first true repeating rifle and a favorite among the Northern troops at the outbreak of the Civil War.
William’s father died in 1880, leaving the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to him. William died from the effects of Tuberculosis the following year.
He was 43. Sarah’s inheritance of over $20 million dollars ( an incredible sum, especially in those days) upon his death made her one of the wealthiest women in the world at the time and she also received 48.9 percent of the company and an income of about $1000 per day, which was not taxable until 1913.
After her husband’s death, the heiress dressed in stifling black dresses even under the baking hot San Jose sun.
She went into mourning and stayed in mourning for the rest of her life ,a bit the way Queen Victoria did when she lost her husband.
Overcome with tragedy, folklore states that Sarah sought out a spiritualist who could commune with the dead. While she was presumably looking for solace or closure, she was instead given a chilling warning.
Through the medium, William told his widow that their tragedies were a result of the blood money the family had made off of the Winchester rifles.
He warned that vengeful ghosts would seek her out. In order to protect herself, William said that Sarah must “build a home for [herself] and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon.”
Sarah was advised to leave their home in New Haven, Connecticut, behind, and move west, where she was to build a grand home for the spirits.
There was just one catch: construction on the house could never stop. “If you continue building, you will live,” the medium warned Sarah.
“Stop and you will die.” Sarah was then told, she must sell her property in New Haven and head towards the setting sun, said the medium.
Having lost first her baby and then her husband, the widowed Winchester heiress left everything she knew of East Coast society behind in order to strike out on her own in San Jose, California, then a very rural area, but close to her relatives.
Under the influence of what many considered madness and most, now, would understand as all-consuming grief, Sarah Winchester built a reclusive life for herself that centered almost entirely on her great project: building a Queen Anne revival house where, during the 38 years she lived there, construction and renovation never stopped ,24 hrs per day.
Legend says Sarah became convinced that the earthquake had been a sign from the spirits and issued many bizarre demands to her builders, including the building of trap doors, secret passages, a skylight in the floor, spider web windows, and staircases that led to nowhere.
There are also doors that open to blank walls, and a dangerous door on the second floor that opens out into nothing—save for an alarming drop to the yard far below. Some say the labyrinth layout was meant to confuse the ghosts, allowing Sarah some peace and a means to escape them.
There is also an alternate theory on the Winchester House’s perplexing design declares that Sarah was creating a puzzle full of encryptions inspired by the work of English philosopher Francis Bacon – Like Bacon, Sarah was a child prodigy.
There is also speculation that clues to the house’s true meaning are hidden in the ballroom, the Shakespeare windows, and the iron gates. This theory suggests that Sarah was a member of a mystic society like the Rosicrucians, or a secret society like the Freemasons—or possibly both.
Its ballroom features two meticulously crafted Tiffany art-glass windows. Here, she inscribed her most elegant clues for us. The windows have stained glass panels with lines from Shakespeare. One reads, “These same thoughts people this little world.”
It’s from the prison soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Richard II. Deposed from power and alone in his cell, the king has an idea to create a world within his prison cell, populated only by his imaginings and ideas.
Whatever the case, It wasn’t crazy to think that she might have been haunted by that idea, that she might have perpetually remembered it, and just as perpetually tried to forget.
Winchester House Gallery:
