Friday, June 28, 2013

Birthday Recap III

On the second day of my Birthday celebration we stopped in San Jose to visit the famous, Winchester Mystery House
If you've never heard of the Winchester Mystery House let me explain it a little. The Winchester house was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Winchester of the famous Winchester gun/rifle fortune. Sarah Winchester had only one child and lost her to phenomena. Sadly a year later she lost her husband. Sarah believed in the spirits and she believed that she would continue to live as long as she continued construction on her house. This idea was affirmed to her one day in one of her seances that she frequently held at her home. Due to this idea construction began in 1884 and continues until 1922. That's 38 years people! 
She spent 5.5 million dollars over the years on construction. The original estate was 161 acres and had orchards along with the home. Fruit was harvested every year and sold as another investment. The home boast 160 rooms and 47 fireplaces. It has 10,000 windows and 2,000 doors. To paint the exterior of the mansion it takes 20,000 gallons of paint. The Winchester house is a National Historic Place and a California Landmark. It also survived the earthquake of 1906 but Sarah closed off certain parts of the house after it. When she died the house was left as it currently is... construction stopped and no one else ever moved into the house. Doors lead to no where. Cabinets open to the outside. The strange things go on and on. You can tell the house use to be semi normal before Mrs. Winchester got her hands on it. 

All in all the Winchester house was pretty interesting. If you're ever in San Jose check it out. The stairs are really odd though and kinda made me dizzy!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I've heard of that house, but had no idea it was in San Jose. How cool!

Why Girls Are Weird said...

FUN! I'm jealous of your travels.

Deidre said...

Oh my goodness, this sounds like such a cool place! Does it have secret rooms and tunnels? I feel like it should.

Caitlin C. said...

This is so crazy!! I have never heard of this place before but I'd love to go explore it!

Haylee said...

This place was so crazy wasn't it? I absolutely loved visiting there when I went. What I thought was so crazy was when she through a dinner party for the GHOSTS in her house. Like what the?! haha