Horror films are made about this mansion, it inspired Stephen King, but its real story is much more interesting than fiction. The 360 ​​website talks about the most mysterious and confusing living space in the world - the Winchester house.

Rarely, but it happens that a film based on real history turns out to be more boring than life events. The Winchester house is the same case.

New horror movie Winchester. The House that the Ghosts Built” received not too high marks from critics and viewers, despite the participation of Oscar-winning Helen Mirren. According to a number of movie connoisseurs, the film does not fully reveal the history of the grandiose Gothic mansion inhabited by myriad souls of people who died from the bullets of the famous Winchester rifle.

This is not the first attempt to tell about one of the most amazing projects in the annals of world architecture: comics and books have been written about it, a number of films have been shot and even a TV series written by Stephen King himself. However, no fiction can convey how strange and extravagant the house was built by the widow of the arms magnate, Sarah Lockwood Winchester.

Cursed wealth

The history of the Gothic monastery begins in 1881 - then William Winchester passed away. His father Oliver created the legendary "gun that conquered the Wild West". Repeating shotguns and pump-action shotguns were in keeping with the zeitgeist and were ideal weapons for dashing firefights in saloons, roadside ambushes, and battles with Indian tribes.

A killer invention made father and son millionaires, but even the richest people get sick and die. First, 70-year-old Oliver Winchester died, and three months later, tuberculosis causes the death of William. A huge fortune of about 20 million dollars (half a billion dollars in modern money - approx. "360") goes to his wife Sarah.

Flickr/HarshLight

The inconsolable widow was shocked by the death of the founders of the weapons dynasty. 15 years before, she experienced a loss only daughter who died in infancy. According to the tabloids of the time, the death of loved ones convinced the woman of the curse hanging over her family. For help, she turns to a medium and receives unusual advice, supposedly from her late husband: only a house that will contain the souls of all those who died from shots from guns fired by the Winchester factories will remove the curse.

Soon Sarah Winchester leaves her native Boston and goes west, to distant California. Here, in the settlement of San José, she buys an unfinished farm and, without an architect or blueprints, begins building her unusual residence. It will go almost continuously for almost 40 years, until her death. Almost everything will go into construction. huge fortune her husband and father-in-law.

house of the dead

The 160 rooms of the mansion are interconnected by a network of corridors and stairs. It took tons of rare mahogany, 10,000 glass panels and almost 80,000 liters of paint to build it. Dry figures do not convey the extravagance of this outwardly solid building. There are a lot of dead ends here, and the closet door turns out to be a hidden window in the wall. A wide corridor suddenly turns into a narrow passage, and the main staircase ends with a blank wall.

Some biographers of the widow of Winchester claim that the version of ghosts is false and the widow was simply looking for an occupation that would help her forget about her deceased relatives. But the very device of the house indicates the mysticism inherent in its creator. An attentive guest will notice how the number 13 is repeated over and over again in the internal arrangement. Almost every staircase has this many steps, in a small dining room there are exactly 13 windows, and many stained-glass windows consist of 13 parts.

This is not the only mystical feature of the already strange house. Some windows do not look outside, but inside the premises, and the same motif is repeated on the walls, ceilings and stained-glass windows - a stylized cobweb. Finally, one door opens directly onto the street. It would have been normal if it had not been built into the wall at the level of the third floor, so that an unwary visitor could fall into the courtyard from a great height.

One of the explanations for all these oddities is the desire to confuse the spirits. Hidden in the heart of the four-story building is a séance room. According to rumors, it was here that the widow communicated with the dead and received instructions about new rooms or extensions to the mansion. This room has only one entrance, and only the mistress of the house had the key to the door.

The strength of the abode of spirits was tested by nature itself. In 1906, a powerful earthquake on the west coast also affected San Jose. The main building survived, but the seven-story tower that crowned it collapsed. Since then, the mansion has never risen above the fourth floor.

Death of a widow

Whether the ghosts were entangled in the web of corridors, whether the woman was saved by the habit of choosing a new bedroom every night, or the world of spirits from the very beginning was a game of her imagination, but Sarah Winchester lived to a ripe old age. She died in the autumn of 1922 at the age of 82 and was buried next to her husband and daughter.

Her last extravagant trick was the will - it was divided into 13 parts and also signed 13 times. The widow's main heir was her niece, a very pragmatic woman. Eight trucks hauled furniture out of the mansion daily for seven weeks, according to its current owners, and it was put up for auction.

For almost 100 years, anyone can buy a ticket and visit the old mansion. Guides do not recommend climbing to the third floor after dark. Allegedly, mysterious sighs are heard from time to time in its corridors, the steps of invisible guests are heard, and the doors open by themselves.

The state of California, USA, is currently an extravagant tourist attraction.

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Story

In 1884, the house was purchased by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester, son of Oliver Winchester, inventor of the famous rifle. After her husband's death, Sarah had an audience with a medium in Boston, who "communicated with the spirit of her late husband." The spirit of the deceased allegedly reported that Sarah's misadventures (the death of her only daughter shortly after birth, relatively early death William) are connected with the fact that the family is cursed with the death of a rifle created by his father. In order to avoid further problems, the woman must build a special house in which the spirits cannot harm her. Following the advice of a medium, Sarah purchased a house on the west coast.

Being a very wealthy woman, the widow invested all her multi-million dollar fortune in home remodeling. At the same time, she did not resort to the services of professionals, changing the house according to her own plans. The house reached six floors, but after the earthquake in 1906, three upper floors collapsed. However, the owner continued the work, the house has now become three-story, which it remains to this day. All of Sarah's funds went into the construction. After her death on September 5, 1922, only strands of hair from her late daughter and husband were found in the safe. In this case, the Winchester House is considered a scary place (in the sense that spirits still roam this mansion).

Description

The house is arranged in such a way that the spirits that haunt Sarah get confused when trying to find the widow. Therefore, there are many dead-end doors that open into the walls, and stairs that rest against the ceilings. The corridors in the building are very narrow, especially since the widow was tiny and could easily move through this labyrinth. Some of the doors on the upper floors open outwards, and there are hidden windows in many of the walls. The number 13 is often found - almost all stairs have 13 steps, and in many rooms there are 13 windows.

Currently, the house has about 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 stairs. The rooms have 2,000 doors, 450 doorways, about 10,000 windows (stained glass windows have survived to this day), 47 fireplaces and one shower.

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This is a huge mystical house number 525 on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, which is visited by crowds of tourists from all over the world.

While the hostess was alive, guests were not invited here; even President Roosevelt, who tried to ask for tea, got a turn at the gate. Now the former possessions of Sarah Winchester, nee Sarah Lockwood Purdy, scurry about groups of curious. But on by and large, the house is just as inaccessible to strangers as it was during the life of the owner. Some places, like some stories, remain impenetrable to outsiders. The home of Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester, looks like an arthritic old fist. The fist is almost not unclenched.

Maid Purdy would have laughed if it had been predicted that she would have tea parties with ghosts every night for thirty-odd years. The life of Sarah Purdy developed reasonably and successfully. She was 25 when, in 1862, she married William, the son of "the same" Oliver Winchester, whose multiply-charged production is said to have decided the outcome. civil war in the States.

The family grew rich rapidly on military orders, the newlyweds lived in love and prosperity. Small, less than five feet tall, but lovely Mrs. Winchester was the life of the party in New Haven, Connecticut. But four years after the wedding, a misfortune happened in the family - shortly after birth, Annie's daughter died.

Sarah almost went insane, and only after ten years, as they say, did she come to her senses. The Winchesters had no other children. In 1881, William Winchester died of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah a widow with an inheritance of $20 million and a daily income of $1,000 (she got half of the firm's income). Mrs. Winchester was inconsolable. Trying to understand why fate was punishing her so cruelly, she went to Boston to see a medium.

The medium communicated with the spirit of William Winchester for a modest fee. The spirit told her to tell Sarah that the family is cursed by those who died from high-quality Winchester products. He also said that in order to save own life Sarah must move west towards sunset, and in the place that she will be indicated, stop and start building a house. Construction must not stop; if the hammering stops, Mrs. Winchester will die.

The widow packed her belongings and headed west. In 1884, she reached San José, where, according to her, the spirit of her husband told her to stop. She bought a house and set about remodeling and expanding it. Sarah Winchester did this for 38 years in a row, without resorting to the services of professional architects.

Now Winchester House has three floors. It has approximately 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 stairs. The rooms have 2000 doors, 450 doorways, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces. An architect who tries to find logic in the arrangement of a house must be struck with neurosis.

The house was built in such a way as to confuse the spirits that would come to the soul of Mrs. Winchester. Therefore, the doors here open into the walls, and the stairs rest against the ceilings. The corridors are narrow and winding like snake loops. Some doors of the upper floors open outward, so that an inattentive guest will fall straight into the yard, into the bushes; others are arranged in such a way that, having passed the span, the guest must fall into the kitchen sink on the floor below or break through the window arranged in the floor of the lower floor. The doors of many bathrooms are transparent. Secret doors and windows open in the walls, through which you can quietly observe what is happening in neighboring rooms.

The skeptic will notice that these traps, as simple as bear pits, betray the metaphysical ignorance of an elderly widow. The mystical symbolism of the house smacks of simplicity. All stairs, except one, are made up of 13 steps. Many rooms have 13 windows. Luxurious stained glass windows from Tiffany consist of 13 segments. The abundance of fireplaces in the house is explained by the fact that, according to legend, spirits could enter the house through the chimneys.

Other guests were not expected here, and, apparently, Sarah was quite content with her own ideas about the other world. Everything in the house was tailored to the standards of the hostess. The steps are low so that a sick old woman can easily climb them. To lean on the railing, you should bend down - Sarah was short.

The corridors and bays are very narrow - Sarah was thin. It is not known whether Jorge Luis Borges knew about the existence of this house, and Mrs. Winchester certainly could not read his writings. But the house, the designs of which the hostess drew on a napkin at breakfast, seems to be the embodiment of the writer's fantasies. The Minotaur could live here. Sarah Winchester was sure that spirits lived here. Every midnight a gong sounded, and the hostess retired to a special room for a seance. During these hours, the servants heard the sounds of an organ on which the mistress, ill with arthritis, could not play.

By 1906 the house had grown to six stories. But there was an earthquake, and the top three floors collapsed. The hostess, fearing the persecution of evil spirits, slept in a new place every night, and after the earthquake the servants, who did not know where she was this time, did not immediately find her under the rubble. Sarah interpreted what had happened as an intrusion of spirits into the front of the house. 30 unfinished rooms were locked and boarded up, construction continued. Unsuccessful fragments were destroyed, new ones were built in their place.

Sarah Winchester died in September 1922 at the age of 85. The construction cost her treasury: there was no money in the safe. There were only strands of hair, male and infant, and the death certificates of her husband and daughter, as well as a 13-point will, signed 13 times. The will was silent about the fate of the house.

This story is too grotesque, too melodramatic. It's hard to take her seriously. However, she is perfectly truthful and, as such, chaste. Sarah Winchester may seem like an insane, eccentric rich woman who has mediocrely squandered a multimillion-dollar inheritance, and her house - an expensive cumbersome nonsense. His space seems tattered; the children are tired and crying. Winchester House is simply ugly. But just this rare ugliness, and also that nausea with which the consciousness responds to a certain critical, it should be assumed, the thirteenth turn of the staircase, indicates that this house belongs to the field of art.

Winchester House - house number 525 on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose - a place that many tourists visiting California want to visit. The building has 160 rooms, 40 stairs, 2000 doors, 10000 windows, 6 kitchens, 47 fireplaces. In 1884, the house was purchased by Sarah Winchester, widow of William Winchester, son of Oliver Winchester, inventor of the legendary rifle.

A woman named Sarah Winchester lost her daughter almost immediately after her birth. A little later, she lost her beloved husband. After the death of her husband, Sarah was at a reception with a medium in Boston, who, with the help of a séance, was able to establish a connection with the spirit of her deceased lover. The spirit of the deceased said that all the tragic events of Sarah are connected with the revenge of those who died from a rifle created by his father.

To avoid further problems, the widow must build a special house where the spirits cannot harm her. Stopping repairs threatened her with death. Following the advice of a medium, Sarah bought an old mansion on the west coast of California.

Construction was started without delay. Sarah personally made all the plans for repair and restoration work. The implementation of her strange ideas was carried out by a professional team of builders. Each time, new rooms appeared, secret passages, windows to neighboring rooms and stairs, often leading to the ceiling.

The main idea of ​​the woman was to confuse the ghosts who want revenge. For 38 years of construction, the mansion began to resemble a labyrinth. The hostess never invited guests to her house - they would not have endured such horrors. Why are real windows made in the floor worth ...

At first, the house had 6 floors, but after the 1906 earthquake, half of the floors collapsed. Since then, and to this day, the house has only 3 floors. in front of you rare photo six storey building.

Sarah Winchester died in September 1922 at the age of 85. No money was found in the owner's safe, only 2 strands of hair - her late husband and daughter. The entire fortune was invested in an unusual house.

After her death, things began to happen in the house unexplained phenomena: doors slammed by themselves, things moved, lights went out. Paranormal experts believe that some angry ghosts in the long search for Sarah have become eternal captives of the labyrinth mansion. In addition, the spirits are angry that they could not take revenge and the widow of Winchester died of natural causes. According to rumors, mystical anomalies occur in the house even today.

Video - the sinister house of the Winchesters

Perhaps you will be interested.

The California coast of the United States has an interesting attraction - the Winchester House. A very extravagant widow, distinguished by her isolation, owned the mansion. The social circle of the ladies is exclusively workers and servants. Even President Roosevelt, who once asked for an audience, was refused. After the death of the owner, the building turned into an attraction where tourists come from everywhere. Having paid 37 - 47 dollars, curious travelers roam the rooms, outside in the courtyard, examining the tasteless, by the standards of architects, building. The structure is strange, the stories associated with it are full of mysticism.

Sad story

1884 - beginning mysterious history attractions. The unfinished building was acquired by Sarah Winchester - the legend of the house and the life story of the unfortunate woman are closely connected.

Sarah's father is the owner of a prosperous company. The daughter grew up wealthy, her parents gave decent education to kid. A very sweet twenty-year-old girl who spoke several languages, played the piano, and was able to maintain small talk, met William Winchester. The surname is well-known: the father of Sarah's future husband worked as the lieutenant governor of Connecticut, owned a company that produced weapons. Rifles were often called the name of the industrialist - Winchester. The young couple lived quite happily. The joy did not last long, a worthy couple was visited by a terrible grief: she died four year old daughter Emmy. After 19 years of marriage, William, who suffered from tuberculosis, died. It was because of a series of tragic events that arose strange story The secret of the Winchester house.

Curse of the Winchesters

The widow, who lost her vital interest, wishing to find an answer to why fate was cruel, turned to a medium. The widow wanted to hear the advice of the spirits. A resourceful psychic, (the story has kept his name, his name was Adam Kuhn), suggested to the poor woman how to live on, what is the reason for her misfortune. The thing is that the souls of those who died from the weapons that her husband's father produced tried to take revenge. Cursed was both the son and his family. To be saved, Sarah had to build such a house where angry souls could not find her and destroy her. At the same time, the ghosts who wished her well should feel comfortable there.

long-term construction

The widow went to West Coast, where she acquired an unfinished farm near the city of San Jose, where the Winchesters' house is currently located. The farm was originally purchased with 162 acres of land, and the widow subsequently expanded her holdings by building continuously, rebuilding the house inside and out. The construction lasted 38 years, because the medium told his client: while construction works, the widow will live. They say he promised her immortality, on the condition that the construction never ends.

Since the purchase of a farm on the coast in California are inextricably linked. Resolutely, the woman set to work. Considering that her husband's father made a huge fortune selling weapons, his son was also quite successful and wealthy. Accordingly, the widow turned out to be wealthy, having a daily income of $ 1,000, despite the fact that she inherited $ 20 million. There was enough money to implement architectural ideas and design solutions in the interior.

Mysticism and ghosts

22 carpenters worked on the embodiment of the hostess's plans (they say that Sarah herself did all the projects). Men took turns working without breaks: day, night, without holidays and weekends. The house built for the sake of ghosts turned out to be unsafe for the living. The curse of the Winchester house haunted the workers who worked on the erection of a strange structure. Some carpenters claimed to have seen ghosts. Michael Fletcher, a plasterer, told a local newspaper reporter that he saw a translucent figure walking up the stairs. A former ship's carpenter, J. Hegley, met the spirit of a familiar boatswain, who had been killed earlier.

There were rumors among the workers that rooms in the house were coming and going. The hostess made plans for the interior with her own hands, without the help of architects. The layout of the living rooms and bedrooms defied any logic. Often the doors did not lead to a corridor or an adjoining room. Behind the closed door there could be a blank wall, a window, or a yard right away, where you could fall out if you stepped over the threshold without looking under your feet.

oddities at home

The history of construction and the legend of the Winchester House could have ended after 1906. The house had 6 or 8 floors (different sources give conflicting information), an incredible layout, which is why the servants did not know at all which of the bedrooms the hostess chose every night. Therefore, when an earthquake occurred in the early morning of April 18 and several floors collapsed, the Winchester widow, immured in one of the bedrooms, was searched for a long time.

The upper floors collapsed, the house remained four-story. Many rooms were boarded up for good, now in one place, then in another, new ones were built, which is why the interior turned into a labyrinth. If we add that many stairs just rested against the wall (see photo inside the Winchesters' house), and some doors ended in a dead end, we can confidently say: Sarah achieved her goal. The house turned into a labyrinth for ghosts, and living beings often wandered through it. It is no coincidence that the guides who conduct tours inside immediately ask tourists to keep each other and count their wards twice: once at the entrance, and the other at the exit from the mansion.

People say the house is still haunted. The ghosts of the Winchester house are still inside. One guide said that, when he was about to leave to work in another institution, he loudly thanked the hostess and said goodbye to her, standing in one of the living rooms. He claimed that after the parting words, he felt a breath of wind and a light kiss on his cheek.

End of construction

The widow Winchester died in 1922 at the age of 85, according to other sources - 82 (all because exact year her birth has not been established). After communicating with the spirits in a seance, she went to bed in one of the bedrooms and did not wake up. Doctors stated cardiac arrest. Construction has also stopped, and now it has become possible to calculate the number of rooms in the building.

Sarah Winchester's house, after 38 years of continuous construction, now contains 160 rooms, 9 kitchens, 13 (mystical number) bathrooms, 40 staircases, 47 fireplaces, 450 doorways, 10,000 windows and only 2 mirrors. Where spirits dwell, there should be no mirrors. Many doors are secret, when the widow was alive, she could appear unexpectedly anywhere in the house. Why did the servants think she could walk through walls. The stairs are also strange: not all of them lead from floor to floor: some rest against the wall, one of them goes down 4 steps for some reason, then to go up. Often flights of stairs consist of 13 steps.

Immured riches

The Winchesters' house in America, California is now a landmark, a film has been made about it, tourists come here. Many of them report poor health indoors. But this can be explained by suspiciousness, and not by otherworldly influences. You can see not only the features of the internal layout, but also the space outside the house, planted with numerous types of trees and herbaceous plants. Even during Sarah's lifetime, 8-10 gardeners looked after the garden, and the neighborhood children were allowed to frolic on the lawns. The widow, although she did not receive guests in the house, welcomed the children, arranged receptions in the park in the courtyard, and did charity work.

The house of the Winchester family is still fraught with mysteries. Rumor has it that there is a cache of gold there, which no one has yet found. The widow left a will, which was in the safe. Apart from him, there were only curls of her daughter's hair and nothing else - no money. It is possible that the entire fortune of the widow went to the construction, which was carried out around the clock for 38 years (I wonder if it was still interrupted during the earthquake?). Someone thought that Winchester - a haunted house - was worth 70 million dollars. Impressive building estimate!