I went there last year for the flashlight tour they give for friday the 13th and nothin out of the ordinary happened but once I stepped into their huge ballroom all the hairs stood up, somethin about that room was freakin me out, I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

Hi there again now for another of my odd experiences.Exactyl one year ago from today my friends and I went to the Winchester house. At the very least it had to be 40 of us.So as soon as we get there we all begin to get very nervous. Let me explain why earlier some of my friends had experimented with the ouija board.They asked questions about the house such as;Is the house hanted and so forth.Well all of thier answer came out accurate. When we got there we were scheduled to take a private tour of the entire house and belive me when I say the etire house i mean the enitre house all 160 rooms ( my father has a connection). Anyways we had to wait about an hour until our tour so as we are waiting we begin look around the enitire outside of the house. It really is a lovely house. Then after an hour passes we go back to the small garden area to meet our tour guide.As he approcahes he seems a bit odd. First of all his skin looks like the skin of an onion. But we blow it off as nothing. Now the tour starst and we get threw 50 or so rooms with nothing happening. Then we get to this certain room it has a window looking into the room across and as we look in we see this figure. No body moves out of fear then the figure just runs out of the other room.Being ignorant as we are we decide to continue now we pass this great room it was actually very besutiful excpet what was on the inside it looked horrible it was a man disfigured blood oozing. It was horrendous after that we decided to leave as fast as we could but before we left we went to go find our tour guide to tip him but then we asked someone about him an described him and the kind woman said no one of that description worked there.

pasia and kayla again!! – know we had a dream exactlty like this except sisters ….on the same night and the same dream ….we had been to that house just outside …of were we lived…that is when we hear sobbing …every night from 9:38-10:01….isn’t that so so so so so FREAKY and SCARY ???? – we moved to oceanside but are still haunted from that day !!! we are seriouslty not making this up!!! pasia and kayla

I grew up nearby and worked in the gift shop for a couple of years while in high school. My aunt was a tour guide in the house 10 years before me. The house is creepy and the energy is weird but NO ONE ever really saw, hear or otherwise experienced any ghostly phenomenon. It’s fun to make up stories, the tourists love it! I totally believe in ghosts and even lived in a haunted house during college. The Winchester Mystery House is not haunted. Just weird.

I come from a very sensitive family. And when I say sensitive, I mean we experiance things that many arent blessed with. A few years ago I visited this mansion with my then boyfriend and younger sister. Not saying that I’m an expert. And maybe it was just the area that my tour took us through. But both my sister and I felt nothing. But its a beautiful home.

I Have been there lots of times But on one occasion
the tour Guide took us to the room that Sarah spent her last night in. I am not talking about the Earthquake room there is another where they have a bed made and a desk , and the guy that was laeading the tour said this was the room she had passsed away in .. Well we are all standing around waiting for everyone to walk through to the next room , and I heard and saw a boy about 4 years on our group tap his mom on the shoulder and ask “Mommy who is that women sitting over there watching us ” The mother looked and saw nothing We all looked and saw nothing it was creepy cause the little boy looked confused..The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at that point, The rest of the tour I was turning around to look behind me, . I got freaked and felt the energy of the rest of our group we were all unnerved.

Me and my son visited the Winchester house and it was great. I didn’t see anything unusual (except the house itself) but I did get the **** scare out of me. At the end of the tour I stayed behind to ask the tour guide a question and when I was done everybody had left the house except me, my son and the tour guide. I didn’t see the exit that everyone left through and when the guide was done talking with me she left from another door that we weren’t allowed to enter. So, I didn’t know what door to exit from. There are many doors. All I thought was that I was going to get lost in this MANSION of a house and run into Sara Winchester. I would someday like to go back and take the flashlight tour. I only live a few hours away…

ok theres a resonable explanation for this house. in my opion mrs winchester was over come with grief of looseing her husband an her only child so close to gather. an she had a compleat mentil break down an thats why she built that crazy *** house and belived that the sprits of all the victims of the winchester rifel was telling her to do it.the lady needed some serious medication. an to be hospitalized. but thats just my thaughts about it.

this kinda sounds like this a house a ghost built there was i thnk 4 floors 120 bedrooms 97 bathrooms and no windows or doors u couldn’t even get in it was scary and there was this one ghost that pushed this old guy down the stairs while he was in his wheelchair and the ghost killed the old man

anybody feeling any kind of mystery in the winchester house is a kook.. the real mystery is how they make so much money marketing the myserty hype..

um.
thats not even scary.

sara winchester’s daughter died like a few days or hours after she was born and her husband died not even a full year after that from cancer… she contacted a phycic that was said to be the best and the real deal, to contact her dead husband.. she did get in contact with him and it was him who told her that his soul was being tormented by all the victoms of the winchester rifel, and that they would come after her as well if she didnt do what they asked… what they wanted was a home… she built the home for them ( for the victoms of the rifel) and since every year the number of people killed by the rifel grew she had to countinue to build. she wasnt afraid of all the spirts only the bad ones.. it is said that she would throw great balls for the spirts were she was the only “living” guest and would also have fest in their honer as well.. she would have here servents make the tabel for 13 guest and she would be the only “living” one at the table… the earth quake thing is true, she was traped in a room for 18 or something hours… but sara believed she caused the earth quake, she belived that the spirts were angry with her for spending to much time on the front of the house, and thats why only the front 40 somethin rooms were damaged. so she bloocked them all off, and they were only reopened after her death… and a lot of you who say that this house sounds a lot like Stephen Kings “ROSE RED”.. thats because ROSE RED is based on this house… it is said that Stephen King wanted to film the movie in the winchester house but couldnt because its located in the center of san jose with many busy streets all around it the suroundings were to noisy, also a lot of the rooms were way to small, no way could they fit a camra crew plus the actors in them… i know because i read up on the history of the house from different sources not just one, i’m not saying all of its true, its just what i’ve read…

I’ve been to the Winchester House a few years ago. I did not have any uncomfortable feelings nor do I recall seeing any spirits, unless one fo them was pretending to be part of out tour and I didn’t know it, but the house itself is really cool. The room Sara was trapped in after the earthquake was creepy mainly because we were told that they had just recently opened it prior to us being there. Apprantly it was sealed off for years at Sara’s request because she thought it was cursed or something. I saw the markings still there from when the door was forced open to get here out. The only compliant I had is that the tour is not nearly long enough. There was another part of the tour you could do, that went into a cellar or something like that where you had to wear helmets, but I believe you had to be 14 or something and my children were too young. I think what would be cool is to have a radio contest and have a contestant win money for spening 24 hours alone in the house. Now that would be scary. Also, we were told by our guide that Teddy Roosevlet visited Sara to meet the woman of the man that created the “great Winchester rifle,” but a servant who didn’t know who he was and turned him away at the front door.

Its tru cuz its tru

okay,here we go…Mrs.Winchester was the wife of the man that made Winchester rifles.After his death,Mrs.Winchester seen a medium that told her that the ghost of people killed by winchester guns,wanted her to build them a house,as long as construction continued,she would be safe,the crew of workers,some as young as 12,worked 24 hours a day,at night,Mrs.Winchester,would talk to the spirits and they would tell her what to build next,most of the rooms had nothing to do with her,and yes,she never slept in the same room,in fear that the ghost would find her,after her natural death,all worked stopped,imediately,hammers dropped,nails left hanging half out etc.The people that keep the upkeep on the house now have said that they are not alone,you can still here hammers and such still going as if they still work there,the painters have actually been chased off the job out of fear…please remember,there is not a ghost in this realm that can hurt you,they can scare the hell out of you but thats all.

Thats cool I want to visit there but it sounds kind of scary. But really cool.Just cause you dont believe dosent mean it is not true.

-allie

P.S. I love doggies

This is to all the people who’ve been leaving comments like ‘power to the blacks’ and calling us white people ‘crackers’ and other offensive comments. Even if you don’t believe stuff like this doesn’t mean you have to come on here to put people down you know. I mean grow up…calling people names and all that is so 2nd grade. And to the one calling whites ‘crackers’ and going ‘power to the blacks’…um….the African Americans ARE free…DUH! Where have you been the last ohh, 50 or so years?!? Do you not read your history?? At least where I live us whites are more of a minority now than blacks are…OMG, at the school where my daughter went, she was the ONLY white girl there, the rest were black, hispanic or asian. Get over yourself Miss new booty! Thanks for listenin to me rant people. L8tr.

In 1884, a wealthy widow named Sarah L. Winchester began a construction project of such magnitude that it was to occupy the lives of carpenters and craftsmen until her death thirty-eight years later. The Victorian mansion, designed and built by the Winchester Rifle heiress, is filled with so

many unexplained oddities, that it has come to be known as the Winchester Mystery House.

Sarah Winchester built a home that is an architectural marvel. Unlike most homes of its era, this 160-room Victorian mansion had modern heating and sewer systems, gas lights that operated by pressing a button, three working elevators, and 47 fireplaces. From rambling roofs and exquisite hand inlaid parquet floors to the gold and silver chandeliers and Tiffany art glass windows, you will be impressed by the staggering amount of creativity, energy, and expense poured into each and every detail.

Our story begins in September 1839 with the birth of a baby girl to Leonard and Sarah Pardee of New Haven, Connecticut. The baby’s name was also Sarah and as she reached maturity, she became the belle of the city. She was well-received at all social events, thanks to her musical skills, her fluency in various foreign languages and her sparkling charm. Her beauty was also well-known by the young men about town, despite her diminutive size. Although she was petite and stood only four feet, ten inches, she made up for this in personality and loveliness.

At the same time that Sarah was growing up, a young man was also maturing in another prominent New Haven family. The young man’s name was William Wirt Winchester and he was the son of Oliver Winchester, a shirt manufacturer and businessman. In 1857, he took over the assets of a firm which made the Volcanic Repeater, a rifle that used a lever mechanism to load bullets into the breech.

Obviously, this type of gun was a vast improvement over the muzzle-loading rifles of recent times, but Winchester still saw room for advance. In 1860, the company developed the Henry Rifle, which had a tubular magazine located under the barrel. Because it was easy to reload and could fire rapidly, the Henry 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.

Money began to pour in and Oliver Winchester soon amassed a large fortune from government contracts and private sales. He re-organized the company and changed the name to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The family prospered and on September 30, 1862, at the height of the Civil War, William Wirt Winchester and Sarah Pardee were married in an elaborate ceremony in New Haven.

Four years later, on July 15, 1866, Sarah gave birth to a daughter named Annie Pardee Winchester. Just a short time later, the first disaster struck for Sarah, as her daughter contracted an illness known as “marasmus”, a children’s disease in which the body wastes away. The infant died on July 24. 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.

Not long after Sarah returned to her family and home, another tragedy struck. William, now heir to the Winchester empire, was struck down with pulmonary tuberculosis. He died on March 7, 1881. As a result of his death, Sarah inherited over $20 million dollars, an incredible sum, especially in those days. She also received 48.9 percent of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and an income of about $1000 per day, which was not taxable until 1913.

But her new-found wealth could do nothing to ease her pain. Sarah grieved deeply, not only for her husband, but also for her lost child. A short time later, a friend suggested that Sarah might speak to a Spiritualist medium about her loss. “Your husband is here,” the medium told her and then went on to provide a description of William Winchester. “He says for me to tell you that there is a curse on your family, which took the life of he and your child. It will soon take you too. It is a curse that has resulted from the terrible weapon created by the Winchester family. Thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance.”

Sarah was then told that she must sell her property in New Haven and head towards the setting sun. She would be guided by her husband and when she found her new home in the west, she would recognize it. “You must start a new life,” said the medium, “and build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die.”

Shortly after the seance, Sarah sold her home in New Haven and with a vast fortune at her disposal, moved west to California. She believed that she was guided by the hand of her dead husband and she did not stop traveling until she reached the Santa Clara Valley in 1884. Here, she found a six room home under construction which belonged to a Dr. Caldwell. She entered into negotiations with him and soon convinced him to sell her the house and the 162 acres which it rested on. She tossed away any previous plans for the house and started building whatever she chose to. She had her pick of local workers and craftsmen and for the next 36 years, they built and rebuilt, altered and changed and constructed and demolished one section of the house after another. She kept 22 carpenters at work, year around, 24 hours each day. The sounds of hammers and saws sounded throughout the day and night.

As the house grew to include 26 rooms, railroad cars were switched onto a nearby line to bring building materials and imported furnishings to the house. The house was rapidly growing and expanding and while Sarah claimed to have no master plan for the structure, she met each morning with her foreman and they would go over the her hand-sketched plans for the day’s work. The plans were often chaotic but showed a real flair for building. Sometimes though, they would not work out the right way, but Sarah always had a quick solution. If this happened, they would just build another room around an existing one.

As the days, weeks and months passed, the house continued to grow. Rooms were added to rooms and then turned into entire wings, doors were joined to windows, levels turned into towers and peaks and the place eventually grew to a height of seven stories. Inside of the house, three elevators were installed as were 47 fireplaces. There were countless staircases which led nowhere; a blind chimney that stops short of the ceiling; closets that opened to blank walls; trap doors; double-back hallways; skylights that were located one above another; doors that opened to steep drops to the lawn below; and dozens of other oddities. Even all of the stair posts were installed upside-down and many of the bathrooms had glass doors on them.

It was also obvious that Sarah was intrigued by the number “13″. Nearly all of the windows contained 13 panes of glass; the walls had 13 panels; the greenhouse had 13 cupolas; many of the wooden floors contained 13 sections; some of the rooms had 13 windows and every staircase but one had 13 steps. This exception is unique in its own right…. it is a winding staircase with 42 steps, which would normally be enough to take a climber up three stories. In this case, however, the steps only rise nine feet because each step is only two inches high.

While all of this seems like madness to us, it all made sense to Sarah. In this way, she could control the spirits who came to the house for evil purposes, or who were outlaws or vengeful people in their past life. These bad men, killed by Winchester rifles, could wreak havoc on Sarah’s life. The house had been designed into a maze to confuse and discourage the bad spirits.

The house continued to grow and by 1906, it had reached a towering seven stories tall. Sarah continued her occupancy, and expansion, of the house, living in melancholy solitude with no one other than her servants, the workmen and, of course, the spirits. It was said that on sleepless nights, when she was not communing with the spirit world about the designs for the house, Sarah would play her grand piano into the early hours of the morning. According to legend, the piano would be admired by passers-by on the street outside, despite the fact that two of the keys were badly out of tune.

The most tragic event occurred within the house when the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 struck. When it was all over, portions of the Winchester Mansion were nearly in ruins. The top three floors of the house had collapsed into the gardens and would never be rebuilt. In addition, the fireplace that was located in the Daisy Room (where Mrs. Winchester was sleeping on the night of the earthquake) collapsed, shifting the room and trapping Sarah inside. She became convinced that the earthquake had been a sign from the spirits who were furious that she had nearly completed the house. In order to insure that the house would never be finished, she decided to board up the front 30 rooms of the mansion so that the construction would not be complete – and also so that the spirits who fell when portion of the house collapsed would be trapped inside forever.

For the next several months, the workmen toiled to repair the damage done by the earthquake, although actually the mammoth structure had fared far better than most of the buildings in the area. Only a few of the rooms had been badly harmed, although it had lost the highest floors and several cupolas and towers had toppled over. The expansion on the house began once more. The number of bedrooms increased from 15 to 20 and then to 25. Chimneys were installed all over the place, although strangely, they served no purpose. Some believe that perhaps they were added because the old stories say that ghosts like to appear and disappear through them. On a related note, it has also been documented that only 2 mirrors were installed in the house…. Sarah believed that ghosts were afraid of their own reflection.

On September 4, 1922, after a conference session with the spirits in the seance room, Sarah went to her bedroom for the night. At some point in the early morning hours, she died in her sleep at the age of 83. She left all of her possessions to her niece, Frances Marriot, who had been handling most of Sarah’s business affairs for some time. Little did anyone know, but by this time, Sarah’s large bank account had dwindled considerably. Rumor had it that somewhere in the house was hidden a safe containing a fortune in jewelry and a solid-gold dinner service with which Sarah had entertained her ghostly guests. Her relatives forced open a number of safes but found only old fishlines, socks, newspaper clippings about her daughter’s and her husband’s deaths, a lock of baby hair, and a suit of woolen underwear. No solid gold dinner service was ever discovered.

The furnishings, personal belongings and surplus construction and decorative materials were removed from the house and the structure itself was sold to a group of investors who planned to use it as a tourist attraction. One of the first to see the place when it opened to the public was Robert L. Ripley, who featured the house in his popular column, “Believe it or Not.” The house was initially advertised as being 148 rooms, but so confusing was the floor plan that every time a room count was taken, a different total came up. The place was so puzzling that it was said that the workmen took more than six weeks just to get the furniture out of it. The moving men became so lost because it was a “labyrinth”, they told the magazine, American Weekly, in 1928. It was a house “where downstairs leads neither to the cellar nor upstairs to the roof.” The rooms of the house were counted over and over again and five years later, it was estimated that 160 rooms existed….. although no one is really sure if even that is correct.

Today, the house has been declared a California Historical Landmark and is registered with the National Park Service as “a large, odd dwelling with an unknown number of rooms.”

Most would say that such a place must still harbor at least a few of the ghosts who came to reside there at the invitation of Sarah Winchester. The question is though, do they really haunt the place? Some would say that perhaps no ghosts ever walked there at all…. that the Winchester mansion is nothing more than the product of an eccentric woman’s mind and too much wealth being allowed into the wrong hands.
There is no question that we can regard the place as one of the world’s “largest haunted houses”, based on nothing more than the legend of the place alone. Is this a case where we need to draw the line between what is a real haunted spot …. and what is a really great story?

Is the Winchester Mansion really haunted? You will have to decide that for yourself, although some people have already made up their minds.

There have been a number of strange events reported at the Winchester House for many years and they continue to be reported today. Dozens of psychics have visited the house over the years and most have come away convinced, or claim to be convinced, that spirits still wander the place. In addition to the ghost of Sarah Winchester, there have also been many other sightings throughout the years.

In the years that the house has been open to the public, employees and visitors alike have had unusual encounters here. There have been footsteps; banging doors; mysterious voices; windows that bang so hard they shatter; cold spots; strange moving lights; doorknobs that turn by themselves…. and don’t forget the scores of psychics who have their own claims of phenomena to report.

Obviously, these are all of the standard reports of a haunted house… but are the stories merely wishful thinking? Reports of ghosts and spirits to continue the tradition of Sarah Winchester’s bizarre legacy? Or could the stories be true? Was the house really built as a monument to the dead? Do phantoms still lurk in the maze-like corridors of the Winchester Mystery House?

I urge you to visit the house if you should ever get the chance. Perhaps that would be the best time to answer the questions that I have just posed to you. I can promise that you will find not another piece of American architecture like the Winchester mansion….

And who knows what else you might find while you’re there?

YUP,THIS HOUSE IS VERY INTERESTING!!!I HAVE SEEN IT FOR MYSELF!!IT WAS PRETTY SCARY!!!MOSTLY EVERYTHING PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE HOUSE IS TRUE!!CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF!!!