The Winchester Mansion

For those unfamiliar with the Winchester Mansion, this is an absolutely fascinating place. I first learned of it back in grad school, and my friend Ann and I shared a similar fascination with both the building and its rather bizarre history. In fact, Ann was the only other person I’ve ever met who shared my secret desire to recreate the Winchester Mansion out of Legos. I even went so far as to call up the place (while in Ohio), asking if I could track down the blueprints.

And in case you’re wondering – none exist. Much of the building was built before people filed blueprints with the city, and a good portion of the building is undocumented.

The story behind the Winchester Mansion? Well, Sarah Winchester was the heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune. Many years after her husband’s death, she consulted a medium who told her that her family was “cursed,” due to the large number of animals and men the Winchester rifle had killed. In order to create a place for all those wandering souls, she was told to build a large house – and to keep building and building. It’s rumored that many portions of the home were constructed with the express purpose of confusing or misdirecting these spirits: stairs that lead nowhere and disappear into the ceiling, doors that open to nothing but an empty shaft that goes down several floors. That sort of thing.

It’s also rumored that Sarah Winchester slept in a different room, each night, in order to escape detection by these spirits. Construction continued on the mansion 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for 38 years. Yeah, that’s right – 38 YEARS. By the time of her death in 1922, the Winchester Mansion had a total of 160 rooms.

What made me think of all this? Earlier this morning, I spotted a link on Boing Boing that talked about some photos posted by someone who works at the Mansion. Behind the scenes stuff that the public doesn’t normally see.

One thing I definitely need to do is travel out west, and see this place. I’ve been pretty fascinated by this building for so many, many years. One of these days, I really need to go see it in person.

I hope you find this equally fascinating. I’ll leave you with a few links:

Post on Boing Boing.
Behind the scenes photos.
Flickr photo clusters.
Winchester Mansion postcards.
Official site.
Wikipedia entry.