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Haunted PlacesSan Jose, California, USA3 min read

Winchester Mystery House: The Mansion Built for Ghosts

The heiress who built a 160-room labyrinth — stairs to nowhere, doors to walls — to outwit the ghosts she believed were hunting her.

Winchester Mystery House: The Mansion Built for Ghosts — San Jose, California, USA
Photo: The wub · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Construction that never stopped

After inheriting the Winchester rifle fortune, Sarah Winchester believed she was cursed by the spirits of everyone killed by the gun. A medium, the story goes, told her to build continuously to confuse them. From 1886 until her death in 1922, construction ran 24 hours a day.

A house with no plan

The result: 160 rooms, staircases that climb into ceilings, doors that open onto walls, and windows looking into other rooms — a labyrinth meant to baffle the dead.

Visit

Now a California Historical Landmark, the mansion offers daily tours and candlelight flashlight tours near Halloween.

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