The Winchester Mystery House – San Jose, California

One of our local treasures in the San Francisco Bay Area is the gorgeous and bizarre Winchester House in San Jose, CA. The Winchester Mystery House is at the top of multiple lists as one of the most Haunted Houses in the world. It has been featured in Ghost Adventures, Ghost Brothers, MythBusters, short films, and in the movie “Winchester”, starring the wonderful Helen Mirren. It is a MUST place to visit in San Jose whether you believe in ghosts or not.

This Victorian mansion with its immaculate gardens is located at 252 S. Winchester Blvd, straight across from the hustle and bustle of one of San Jose’s popular hangout spots, Santana Row – a stretch of high-end stores, great restaurants, movie theater, and hotel. It looks as out of place now, as it has always been.

Sarah Winchester, the widow and heiress of the fortunes of Winchester Repeating Arms Company, bought a modest 6-room farmhouse after her move to California from the East Coast in 1884 and started a non-stop remodeling of it over the next 37 years. At some point, it became a 7-story 500+ rooms palace, until the 1906 earthquake rattled the region. Today it is a 4-story mansion with supporting outside buildings sitting on 4.5 acres, with at least 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces but only 17 chimneys, 40+ bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, and 2 basements.

Most stories you’ll read about Sarah Winchester’s move across the country, her mindset, and spiritualism might make you think she was profoundly crazy. The architecturally chaotic and labyrinth-like mansion will probably give you enough proof that she was. We are talking about staircases to the ceiling, doors opening into walls, skylights on the floors, etc. Even a séance room!

Locals will tell you that Sarah Winchester was a community benefactor of the time, helping the construction workers with modest pay in the time of the recession. Sarah Winchester was a great contributor to charity causes, an avid interior design fan, and a smart (and eccentric) businesswoman.

Whether you go for the peculiar architecture or hope to get a glimpse of a ghost or two, you’ll most likely feel an indisputable flow of weird “energy” inside the mansion and its effects on your mood, enveloping you, room by room, staircase by staircase. (TIP: no photos are allowed during the mansion tours. Bring a notebook to jot down the feelings and observations that come to mind when you do the tour. The 3^rd floor is definitely the spookiest (with the least amount of rooms open to the public as well)).

Friday the 13^th Flashlight Tours and Halloween Candlelight Tours are very popular – make sure to book in advance.

For more information, hours of operations, and special tours check The Winchester Mystery House site before you go.

Have you been to the Winchester Mystery House? Are you planning to visit? Have questions? Leave a reply below!

And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Want to discover more great attractions in the San Francisco Bay Area? See our articles on the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, the Blackhawk Museum, the Ghost Tour of the USS Hornet, and more in the Local Discoveries section on our blog!

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