Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Oct. 30, 2002

The story of the perpetual
Halloween house

In San Jose, CA, there is a perpetual Halloween house, open to tourists everyday except Christmas. The Winchester Mystery House was dubbed the "Spook Palace" by a 1928 reporter shortly after it opened to the public, because it was built with both good and bad ghosts in mind. Sarah Winchester, owner, sole architect and contractor, did "as the spirits directed." I toured this strange place in the 1980s and at that time psychics met there every Halloween to conduct séances and I expect that has continued.

In May, 1974 the Winchester House became a registered California Historical Landmark and was also placed on the National Register of Historic Places. A plaque gives a brief history. "Built by Sarah Winchester, widow of rifle manufacturer William Winchester, this unique structure includes many outstanding elements of Victorian architecture and fine craftsmanship. Construction began in 1884 and continued without interruption until Mrs. Winchester's death in 1922. The continual building and remodeling created a 160-room house covering an area of six acres."

The strange story began on the East Coast when Sarah's husband died of tuberculosis, leaving his young widow $20 million and 50 percent of the company's stock. She was haunted by that fortune because in her mind it was "blood money." All those rifles that won the West had snuffed out many lives. She turned to a Boston medium who played on that thought and planted the idea that she was being pursued by all their ghosts.

The medium advised her to move west, buy a home and continue building for the rest of her life. The medium threatened that if work ever stopped, the evil spirits would attach themselves to the completed house. Sarah heeded the advice and bought an eight-room house in the Santa Clara Valley. For the next 38 years the sound of hammering and sawing filled the air 24 hours a day every day, including holidays.

By 1900 the expanded house was eight stories high and there was a profusion of towers and turrets. Posts and pillars were all installed upside-down. When the great earthquake hit in 1906 the upper floors were destroyed, leaving the lower four floors, and that is where the mansion remained in height. From that point on Sarah began building out instead of up.

Sarah had a windowless séance room, where she spent hours waiting for the spirits to direct what quirky construction was to be done. Many of the strange ideas were intended to baffle evil spirits. Walls and whole rooms were built and torn out. Doors and windows opened onto blank walls, staircases led to the ceiling, many skylights were unexposed to the sun. All these strange elements are found throughout the sprawling mansion. Things became so complex Sarah and her large staff of servants needed maps to find their way around.

In this mystery house there are 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 40 bedrooms, 47 fireplaces, six kitchens and three elevators. Sarah and her spirits designed a bell tower with no way to reach the huge bell except by crawling over roofs. Down the center a bell rope ended in the cellar which was reached by a secret underground labyrinth. Sarah had read that spirits leave their graves at midnight and must return by 2 a.m. Each night the bell was tolled at midnight, at 1 a.m., and the last toll for the spirits to leave was at 2 a.m. Only two people knew how to reach the bell rope. Each day the main bell toller, a Japanese man, called the astronomical observatory to set his expensive watch. He had an assistant who accompanied him to the midnight belling.

Sarah did not entertain real people, but her many invisible guests always knew when to call and when to leave, by the ringing of the bell.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.