So Supernatural - HAUNTED: The Winchester Mystery House

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

This odd 24,000-square-foot Victorian mansion boasts winding staircases that lead to nowhere, windows built into the floors, and doors that open to 13-foot drops. But the oddest thing about this structure is who Sarah Winchester may have built it for.  

Every house has some kind of story attached to it. Maybe it was a newlywed couple's first big purchase or a retirement home that took years to save for. But it's the homes with darker pasts, the ones that saw some pretty tragic moments that make the most memorable stories. Out in San Jose, California, there's an old Victorian manor that's said to be one of the most haunted places in America. It's nothing like your average haunted house. In fact, it's not like a normal house at all. It has these winding staircases that lead to nowhere, doors that open to 13-foot

drops, windows built into floors, and a dizzying labyrinth of never-ending halls, which makes you wonder, what's this home story, and how many ghosts live inside its walls? This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week, we're taking a tour of the Winchester House. The mansion was the brainchild of a wealthy widow named Sarah Winchester, and it took her nearly 40 years to complete. And even today, almost a century after Sarah's death,

no one knows for sure what happened behind the walls of that mansion. We'll have more on Sarah Winchester after this. As soon as you pull off the 280 freeway in San Jose, California, you'll notice a gas station, a shopping center, a string of restaurants, and one of the most bizarre houses ever built. It's an ornate 24,000 square foot Victorian mansion. A little gaudy maybe, but it would have been stylish for a house built in the late 1800s. Once you walk through its front doors though, I don't even know how to describe it. Say you're on the first floor and you want to go up to the next.

You'd probably look for, I don't know, a staircase. Well, in this house, the staircase is behind a set of closed doors. And once you finally find it and climb up to the top, there's nothing there. Just the ceiling. So you turn back around and find yourself wandering through this narrow, cramped hallway. You're hoping to find the bathroom, but when you open the next door, you're face to face with a wall. So you try the next door. Behind that one, there's nothing but blue sky and a 13-foot drop down to the lawn below. If you wander around for long enough, you might notice a pattern. There's 13 bedrooms,

13 paned windows, and 13 steps on almost every staircase. Then there's the stained glass windows, which are just bizarre. One has an inscription that says, wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts. An excerpt from one of Shakespeare's plays. By now you're probably asking yourself, what kind of person would design a house like this? The answer is a millionaire widow by the name of Sarah Winchester. From the start, Sarah's life is blemished by death and bad luck. She's named after an older sister she never got to meet who died before Sarah number two was born. Sarah grows up in the picturesque town of New Haven, Connecticut in the mid-19th century, and for the most part, her family lives a pretty idyllic middle-class life. But Sarah has a hard time connecting with the other kids her age. She's shy, withdrawn, and

doesn't seem interested in playing or socializing with anyone, not even her five brothers and sisters. As she gets older, Sarah spends a lot of time in her father's mill watching the craftsmen work. She falls in love with architecture, especially the small details that make a home unique, like spindles and wainscoting. From growing up so close to Yale University, Sarah reportedly picks up due interests in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. If you've listened to the show for a while, you've probably heard me cover the Freemasonsry. If you've listened to this show for a while, you've probably heard me cover the Freemasons before. They're one of the oldest fraternal organizations in the world. And the Rosicrucians are a similar group of spiritualists who study the metaphysical laws

of the universe. Both groups are known for their secrecy, their mysterious symbolism, and their connections to the occult. Their members believe two things. One, that knowledge is the key to salvation. And two, that this knowledge can be learned through some form of spiritual awakening. Now, as a woman, Sarah can't be officially initiated into the Freemasons, which was a men's only club, but she's exposed to their teachings, and it's something she seems to carry with her for the rest of her life. By the time she's 23, her older sisters are all married off, and her parents are like, okay, it's your turn. So she marries the son of an old family friend, 25-year-old William Winchester. Now, this guy's a total catch.

Not only is he handsome, but his family is pretty well off, too. They have a successful clothing business that William will no doubt take over one day. They'll have a bunch of perfect kids, buy the perfect house, and live happily ever after. But right after they get married, a string of tragedies strikes the family. This is 1862, and the Civil War is in full swing. Sarah's brother-in-law is severely wounded in battle, which is stressful for the entire family. Not to mention, the war disrupts both Sarah and William's family businesses. To make matters worse, William's two-year-old nephew dies from a mysterious illness. Then his sister dies after complications from childbirth, and 19 days after that, her newborn baby passes away too. All this grief

makes it pretty hard for Sarah and William to even think about starting a family of their own. But two years later, Sarah finally learns she's pregnant, and the family is overjoyed. Like, after years of heartbreak, this is some of the best news they've had in a long time. In June 1866, Sarah gives birth to a little girl named Annie. Unfortunately, the baby has a tremendous amount of difficulty in its first few weeks. Sarah has a hard time nursing and the baby isn't able to properly digest her milk. Just a month after she's born, Annie dies from malnourishment. Sarah's beyond devastated and it's made worse by the common belief at the time that unbaptized infants, like Annie, are condemned to eternal damnation. The grief and guilt is probably part of the reason why, after the loss of Annie, there's no more babies in the Winchesters' future.

Only guns. At the time, soldiers are still using single-shot carbines, meaning every single time they fire their gun, they have to stop and reload, wasting precious seconds that could mean life or death. So William's father, Oliver Winchester, sees a great opportunity. He buys out a nearly bankrupt revolver company and hires a mechanic to create the world's first repeating rifle. Now, this gun is fast, so fast it can fire off 15 shots in 10 seconds. The Civil War has just ended, but within a few years, there's another booming market for these rifles. People are moving out to the West in droves, which means there's a lot of conflict between settlers and indigenous Americans. And with conflict comes a high demand for guns.

Less than a decade later, the Winchester rifle is literally the icon of the West. The family's wealth explodes. And you'd think for Sarah, this would mark an incredible turn of luck. But no matter how much money you have, death can still find its way to your doorstep. In May 1880, Sarah's mother passes away. That December, her father-in-law dies after a stroke. And the next March, Sarah's husband, William, dies from tuberculosis. Sarah has no idea how to cope.

It's like, come on, universe, give this woman a break. William was her life, and after his death, she basically holds up in a beach house in Connecticut and becomes even more reclusive than usual. Some say she goes to Europe for a while, revisiting all the places she and William once traveled. But other than that, her days and thoughts over the next few years are a total mystery. Then, in 1885, she makes a major life change. She takes off for California and undertakes a very peculiar project. Coming up, Sarah begins work on the famed Winchester Mystery House. Now back to the story.

Around the start of 1886, Sarah Winchester gets in touch with a guy named Ned Rambo, an old business associate of Williams. She tells Ned she doesn't know exactly where she wants to live, but she needs something different, warm with a lot of sunshine. And Ned's like, girl, do I have the place for you? He takes her out to the Santa Clara Valley in California, an area just south of San Francisco. Back in 1886, it's still this untouched new frontier. Ned shows her this ranch that's for sale. It's about 45 acres and surrounded by lush fruit farms. So it's pretty isolated from the outside world, just the way Sarah likes it. But the house on the property could use some work. It's this old eight-room farmhouse, a little small for Sarah's liking, but she figures she can always expand. Plus, the property reminds her of Llanada Alavesa, a beautiful valley in Spain that she and William once visited. So she buys the property and names it Llanada Villa and gets to work on some renovations.

Sarah hires a construction team, but she designs the remodel herself. And her plans have zero logic. The workers are given no architectural blueprints, only Sarah's rough sketches. And she changes her mind all the time. Sometimes they'll start on a new wing of the home, only to be told to abandon it soon after. If she doesn't like what they've built, she tells them to tear it down and start over. Like, money seems to be no object. In her first six months at Yanada Villa, Sarah's eight rooms turn into 26. Throughout the 1890s, she builds even more hallways, leading to more bedrooms and sitting rooms. Then she adds entirely new floors to the home. A third, then a fourth, in some places even a fifth. By the end of the century, there's a tower that hits seven stories tall.

So yeah, this place is freaking huge. And you'd think she'd use all that space for, say, family or guests. But no. She convinces her sisters to move out to California and buys them their own houses so she can keep the mansion all to herself. Which makes you wonder, what the heck is she doing there? All in all, to the people in town, Sarah is just strange. On the rare occasion that she does go out in public, she wears all black, gloves on her

hands, and a veil on her face. She dresses as if she's still in mourning, even though it's been years since William passed. It doesn't help that she never invites her neighbors over to visit. All they can do is speculate about what's going on behind those ever-expanding doors. The only people who have access to the home are a steady stream of servants. But none of them say a word to anyone about what they see or do in there. It's almost as if Sarah has something to hide. Even when the president, the gun-loving Teddy Roosevelt, comes to town, Sarah refuses to invite him in.

According to legend, he's there specifically to meet the Winchester heiress. But when he takes his carriage and his entourage all the way down to Yanada Villa, he's met with a locked gate. After hearing this, the newspapers go wild with theories about why Lady Winchester is so closed off. Some claim she isn't having visitors over until the house is finished. Like, maybe she wants to impress people and a messy construction site won't cut it, which, okay, like, I kind of get it. But according to an 1895 article in the San Jose Evening News, some neighbors have a more sinister theory.

Sarah is superstitious. Rumor has it that if she stops working on the house, she believes that she'll meet an untimely fate, just like the rest of her family. So she keeps building and building with no end goal in sight. And in 1906, this theory is actually put to the test. Early in the morning on April 18th, a massive earthquake strikes the Bay Area. It's a 7.8, the second biggest earthquake ever recorded in the state's history. More than 3,000 people die and 28,000 buildings are destroyed, including Yanada Villa. Windows are shattered, chimneys have crashed through the roof, the seven-story tower has completely crumpled, leaving a giant gaping hole in the third floor. Sarah is trapped beneath the rubble, but she survives. But if she wasn't

afraid of death before the earthquake, she certainly is now, which would explain why, despite all the damage, Sarah refuses to tear down the house and rebuild. Instead, she removes what rubble she can and leaves the original house as is, despite the giant holes in the foundation. Then she continues to build. She makes some fundamental repairs and even adds an elevator which is not a cheap project by any means which begs the question why is she holding on to this place when it's half destroyed it makes far more sense to sell the house so maybe sar Sarah does believe that finishing construction will mean her untimely death. And if that's the case, her theory is actually somewhat valid.

Because when construction slows in 1910, Sarah's health does start to decline dramatically. Now, for the record, she's also just hit 71 years old, so it could be a coincidence. Either way, by the fall of 1922, Sarah's hanging on by a thread. At some point, she calls her doctor to Yanada Villa and makes arrangements for her will. Then on September 5th, she passes away peacefully in her favorite bedroom. Following the funeral, her staff is given small portions of her wealth and dismissed from service. At this point, you might think that the servants would finally start talking about what was going on inside that house. But still, nobody will say a thing.

Meanwhile, Sarah's undeveloped land sells pretty easily, but the house does not. At the time of Sarah's death, the place has a maze of 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, and 2,000 doors. It's just way too complicated and huge for any ordinary family to live there. After four months up for auction, only one person makes an offer. His name is John Brown, and he's an amusement park owner. John looks at Sarah's old house and thinks, well, I'm not going to live in it, but I could buy it and turn it into a tourist attraction.

So Brown purchases the house and eventually renames it the Winchester Mystery House. And for the first time ever, he invites the public inside. And boy, do people get their money's worth. This place is basically a funhouse maze. There's a staircase with seven turns, even though it only goes up one story. There's doors too small to walk through, and there's this small, nondescript interior room that everyone can't stop talking about. It has three doors, but only one really works as an exit. Another door drops you eight feet into the kitchen below, and the third leads down a narrow passageway to a closet. Allegedly, this room was used for seances. As more journalists

visit the house, newspapers hint that the Winchester mansion may even be haunted. It's enough to attract the attention of more visitors, more journalists, and special guests like the famed magician Harry Houdini. In October 1924, Houdini is visiting San Jose for a performance when he meets one of the Winchester House tour guides. The guide insists that Houdini come by for a private tour. He'll even arrange a seance. Now, Houdini doesn't exactly believe in ghosts, but he figures he might as well see what all the hoopla is about. If anything, maybe he can debunk this haunted house theory once and for all.

So reportedly, Houdini heads to the home just before midnight for a seance in that strange little private room. And not only does Houdini fail to debunk anything, but I do know that he saw Sarah Winchester's old collection of robes and somehow learned that she uses a different robe for each spirit, which is kind of cagey, but many people believe this meant he saw the ghost of Sarah Winchester herself. Over the next few decades, more creepy stories about the house surface. One day, a guide is leading a tour when she hears a sigh outside Sarah's favorite bedroom. At first, she thinks, no big deal, it's just a guest that fell behind, so she goes out into the hallway to look. That's when she sees a small, dark form glide around the corner and disappear.

Another time, there's an incident in this room Sarah called the Hall of Fires. The room itself is kind of bizarre. It's just this open, empty space with four large fireplaces. Some say that Sarah used this room as a sauna for her aching joints, but who really knows for sure. Supposedly, one evening, a groundskeeper is up on a ladder working on one of the fireplaces. He feels this light tap on his shoulder. He turns around, assuming it's one of his colleagues, except there's no one there. So the man goes back to work, until he feels something push him hard, almost like it's trying to knock him off the ladder. He's so spooked that he drops what he's doing, climbs off the ladder, and runs to a different part of the house. He leaves the job totally unfinished. I mean, who could blame him? Then there's the frequent sightings

of a ghostly man pushing a wheelbarrow. He's often seen working on a fireplace in the ballroom or the coal chute in the basement, and is believed to be one of Sarah's former handymen. There's a bushy-haired woman in an upstairs window, and some even say they've seen the ghost of Sarah herself roaming the front lawn. Now, it's possible this is the work of a few overactive imaginations. After all, if someone tells you that a house is haunted, you're bound to think that every little bump or breeze is a sign of something spectral. But if we dig back into Sarah's life, we might find something different. Because as it turns out, Sarah was not only aware of the ghosts in the house, she may have built it for them.

Coming up, Sarah gets a message from the dead. Now back to the story. Following her husband's untimely death, Sarah's life becomes somewhat of a mystery. But there's one rumored event that kind of changes my opinion on the widow and her mysterious mansion. Allegedly, after William died, Sarah paid a visit to a famed Boston medium by the name of Adam Coons. Sarah asked Adam to summon her husband's spirit. If anything, she hoped that connecting with him would give her some sort of closure. Adam called on the spirit world and allegedly he was successful. He got in contact with William and even transmitted messages between them. Sarah told William she loved him and missed him.

William responded back, I'll be with you always. It would be this really sweet reunion, but it didn't end there. William also had a very important message for Sarah, a warning. He told his wife that she was in danger, that she would be forever haunted by the ghosts of every soul killed by the Winchester rifle, unless she built them a home, a big home. Now, I don't know exactly how many people had been killed by the Winchester rifle at this point, but I do know that by 1880, 200,000 rifles had been purchased. And after William's death, that number continued to escalate, which for Sarah meant construction on the house could never slow down.

There's also a theory that Sarah's strange designs were intended to confuse the spirits. Like if she built this house as a kind of maze, the ghosts would get trapped in its staircases and passageways, and they wouldn't be able to find her. If this were true, it would explain so much. The labyrinthian architecture, the reclusiveness, the secrecy. But according to Mary Jo Ignafo, an expert on Sarah's life, there's no evidence to show that Sarah felt guilty about the gun-related deaths. Ignafo suggests that the public projected their own feelings onto Sarah, that she was used as a scapegoat for their own grief over gun violence. In the 19th century, most gun-related deaths happened during wars, but by the 1930s, guns were more readily available than ever, in large part thanks to the

Winchester's repeating rifle, which meant that civilian deaths grew increasingly common. Coming to terms with this spike in violence was not easy, especially if you were a rifle owner yourself. It was much easier to place blame on Sarah, to say that the house was some sort of penance she was paying, because if Sarah took the fall, then it meant the public didn't have to. All considered, it's more likely that Sarah's obsessive construction was just a way of coping with her grief from her own personal tragedies. It kept her busy, gave her something to do, a sense of purpose and control in a world that was riddled with unexpected loss. After all, Sarah had been inspired by her father's work as a carpenter.

As a woman, she wasn't allowed to go to school for architecture, but her inheritance gave her the means to use this house as kind of a laboratory. And her oddities can be explained pretty easily too. Sarah actually lived with rheumatoid arthritis, a disease that can cause your hands to become misshapen, so that explains the constant gloves. She also lost her teeth late in life, which explains the face covering veil. So this wasn't some sinister character she was trying to play, Sarah was just self-conscious. As for the rest of the house, some of its architectural quirks aren't as spooky as the tour guides want you to think. The bizarre windows on

the floors are actually a design tool to bring light into the lower stories. Some of the stairs to nowhere and doors that open to nothing are likely left over from the earthquake damage. But that doesn't explain all of the home's symbolism. Earlier, I mentioned how Sarah might have been involved with the Freemasons. Many believe that the window inscriptions, quotes from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, were actually an ode to the famed alleged Freemason, Francis Bacon. It's a bit of a stretch, but many Masons felt that Bacon was actually the writer behind Shakespeare's works. and because of that, members of the organization kind of worshipped Bacon. Others claim there are Masonic symbols

in the home's iron gates. Some say that the switchback staircase and other labyrinthian designs are an ode to M.C. Escher, another famed alleged Freemason. You've probably seen his sketches before, like the one where a bunch of staircases go in multiple directions defying the laws of physics well comparing his work with sarah's house it's pretty easy to see the resemblance now this still doesn't explain some of the weird experiences people have had at the house over the years it doesn't explain the incident in the Hall of Fires, the reported apparitions, or Harry Houdini's Night of Terror. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that the Winchester house has a lot of stories, especially about Sarah. Part of the thrill is choosing which ones to believe. I love you. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all Audiochuck originals.