Sarah Winchester Mystery House

♦ Spooky Halloween at Sarah Winchester Mystery House ♦

BOOOOO!!!!

If you want a tip for a diverse and spooky Halloween you can’t miss one of America’s most legendary haunted mansions!!!!

Welcome to Sarah Winchester Mystery House!

Be prepared to scream in a chilling and Gothic atmosphere!!! (I apologize in advance as the pictures are pretty dark but the tour didn’t have any lights but the candle which lead us!)

I moved to the US last October and this is the first place I visited, I was so eager to live fully the American Halloween experience so I’m very fond of it. 🙂

This was my second time here, both times for the candlelight tour to enter in the mood for Halloween! I had an amazing time last year but I noticed they doubled down on the creative storytelling, there were more scares, more actors and more to the story compared to last year tour! Plus, this year was even more special because I was with the Hype team, we had a fantastic time and a special permit to take pictures and videos during the tour! Cool!!!! 🙂

Are you ready to discover the mystery of Sarah Winchester Mystery House?

♠ Who was Sarah Winchester?

Sarah was William Winchester’s wife and heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, from her inheritance she received $1,000 a day!!! (It’s the equivalent of $23,400 a day by today’s standards).

She is best known for using her vast fortune to continue construction on her mansion in San Jose for 38 consecuitve years!!!

The question is: why did she spend the last half of her life and $5,500,000 building a house that contains 160 rooms? The mystery is still unsolved!

Popular legends held that she thought she was cursed by the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester rifles and the only way to alleviate it was following the advice of a Boston medium who told her to move west and to provide a home for those spirits. The medium is claimed to have told her that if construction on the house ever stopped, she would join her husband and infant daughter in death.

So in 1884 Mrs. Winchester moved west to California, she purchased an eight-room farmhouse and began the obession that was to last for the rest of her life. She immediately hired carpenters to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, building, renovating, adding more rooms and rebuilding.

♠ Fun facts:

Constant construction and the lack of a master plan made the house become huge and complex
Serving staff needed a map to navigate the house
The house has doors that open into walls, windows that looks into other walls and staircase that lead nowhere! (someone says she built the house in this way in order to confuse the ghosts of those killed by the Winchester rifles)

Sarah was fascinated by the number 13, many windows have 13 panes and there are 13 bathrooms with 13 windows and 13 stairs leading to them, chandeliers have 13 candles and there are 13 hooks in the cupboards. It’s even more interesting to note that Mrs. Winchester’s will had 13 parts and was signed by her 13 times!
The Winchester Mystery House is a California and National Historic Landmark.
Upcoming movie: ‘Winchester: the House That Ghosts Built’ will spook in US theaters in 2018! The movie is about Sarah Winchester Mystery house, it was filmed here and the house was closed to the public for three days during filming. Helen Mirren will star as Mrs. Winchester.

Don’t miss it!!!

https://youtu.be/wyo92AEcDJI

♠ Tips:

You can visit the house all year round, for Halloween I highly recommend the Candlelight Tour!
Book your tour online! Do it quickly as tickets sold out pretty fast!
Go there before your tour begins as you can visit the gardens of the house, the rifle museum, the gift shop and play some games too!