![]() The home is open for tours and this month, in honor of Halloween, there is a special candlelight tour. ![]() This brings the total of known rooms to 161. It contained a pump organ, Victorian couch, dress form, sewing machine, and paintings. When the room, located in an attic space, was opened, people were able to take a real glimpse into Sarah’s life. Evidently, it was so hidden that it escaped the estate sale following Sarah’s death. This month, a previously unknown room in the house was discovered. The home was sold in 1933 and preserved as a ‘living museum.’ It continues to be one to this day and is also known as California Historical Landmark #868. Her furnishings and personal property were removed and sold. When she died on September 5, 1922, workers stopped the construction. The home also had its own water and electrical supply as well as a sewage drainage system. ![]() There were on-site workshops for the carpenters and plumbers. There are three elevators in the house and there is one shower, too! Two of the elevators were driven by hydraulics and the third used electricity. Electronic ignition was used to ignite the lamps. Carbide gas lights were supplied by an on-site gas manufacturing plant. She may have been the first to use wool insulation in the walls. ![]() The house also incorporated many of the technical advances of the day. Windows per room, steps in the staircases, rails in the railings, panels in floors and walls, and how many lights in the chandeliers all feature these prime numbers. The house also features the prime numbers 7, 11, and 13. There is a theme of upside down pillars running throughout the house. In one instance, a skylight is built into the floor. There are skylights covered by roofs and other skylights. The home has 47 chimneys, but which ones are functional? Some have an overhead ceiling. There is a staircase to nowhere, rooms within rooms, doors that open to solid walls or to the outside (the first step is a big two-story drop to the ground). It is a labyrinth filled with features that were sure to disorient anyone exploring it. The Winchester Mystery House is perhaps the oddest home ever constructed in the United States. It never again grew taller, but it did grow wider. The great earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906 damaged the home, reducing it to four stories. At one time the house reached a height of seven stories in some places. The crew of approximately 20 worked in rotating shifts 24 hours a day, every day of the year. ![]() She immediately hired a crew of carpenters and started building the house we know today as the Winchester Mystery House. In 1884, Sarah purchased an eight-room farmhouse on 161 acres of farmland from a local doctor. Three years later, she settled in the San Jose area of California, near where many of her relatives resettled during the Gold Rush of 1849. She was one of the wealthiest women in the world. When William died in 1881, Sarah inherited $20 million and nearly 50% of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company stock. Perhaps, none as much as the home she built after her husband died. The influences of her early years followed her throughout her life. Both she and her husband had family members who were Freemasons. She traveled in the social circles that included many of Yale’s progressive thinkers. Sarah (Pardee) Winchester grew up in New Haven, Connecticut and attended Yale’s Young Ladies Collegiate Institute (please see part one of this series for more on Sarah’s life). ![]()
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