"A giant question mark immersed in apricot and olive orchards" - this is how the American newspaper San Jose Mercury News named the famous eight-story mansion - the house of the Winchester widow in 1911. And he really conceals in himself a lot of mysteries: stairs resting against the ceiling, rooms locked in other rooms, signs, symbols … One question to this day torments historians: from whom did Sarah try to escape in this house?
Widow's fate
We know almost nothing about a girl named Sarah Lockwood Purdy, except that she was born in 1840 and at the age of 22 she married William Winchester - the son of "the same" Oliver Winchester, the inventor of the "gun that will conquer the West", the owner the American arms company Winchester Repeating Arms Company and a very rich man.
We don't know how Sarah grew up, whether she had a good relationship with her family or husband. Only two photographs of Sarah have survived. One picture shows a young, chubby and pink-cheeked girl with dark eyebrows and a fashionable hairstyle at that time. She leaves a strange impression. The look seems distant, the lips are compressed, and the tight collar-collar creates an almost monastic image.
In the year of Sarah's wedding to William, William's father founded the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, a company that quickly and faithfully led him and the Winchester family to untold wealth.
Probably, the couple tried to have children for a long time, but for some reason they did not succeed, the first daughter of Sarah and William was born only four years later. The baby did not live even two months - she died of protein deficiency. The spouses had no more children. Oliver Winchester died in 1880, and a year later - after 19 years of marriage - Sarah's husband, William, also died of tuberculosis.
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Sarah became the heiress of a huge fortune. But, left alone, without children and a husband with whom she lived most of her life, Sarah was at a loss.
Until the hammers fall silent, you will be alive
Everything related to the later life of Sarah Winchester is surrounded by secrets. According to legend, Sarah sincerely believed that her family was cursed. This idea was thrown to her (or, perhaps, only confirmed the conjectures of Mrs. Winchester) by the famous Boston medium Adam Koons at that time. He also convinced her that the fault lies in the souls of those who were shot from a gun developed by her father-in-law. Should they overtake her, the woman will suffer the same fate as her relatives.
"What can I do to avoid this?" - probably asked the widow, to which she received the answer that she needed to please the ghosts. Or hide from them. Or make them admire. In general, many versions have come down to our days: according to some, the ghosts should have been confused, while others recommended resorting to the afterlife feeling of beauty.
History has not kept how much money the Boston medium asked for such valuable advice, but Sarah listened to it. Although more prosaic versions say that the widow was simply looking for a new hobby because of the prolonged depression. In addition, she and her husband had already invested in construction. Janan Boehme, one of the housekeepers, who has worked in the mysterious mansion for almost forty years, suggested that Sarah just wanted to do something familiar, something that once gave her and her husband pleasure.
In 1884, she traveled to California with her sister and niece and bought a small 6,500-acre farmhouse. To improve it, she had to spend $ 20 million of her inheritance. However, as we have already said, Sarah was very rich and could afford any whim. She received income from her husband's company, which then amounted to a thousand dollars a day. In our time, it's all the same as if she received $ 23 thousand.
Sara refused the services of an architect and got down to business herself, hiring carpenters who would work day and night - so that the hammers would not stop. So they worked for 38 years, creating an amazing seven-story mansion. However, they say that this is an exaggeration, no one worked on the construction site day and night to please the generous employer.
True or not, a huge, monstrous home has grown on the site of an old farmhouse with 161 rooms (including 40 bedrooms and 2 ballrooms), 47 fireplaces, two storage rooms and three elevators.
If Sarah really wanted to confuse the spirits who hunted her, she probably succeeded. Many doors in the house did not lead anywhere - as soon as you opened them, and you bumped into a blank wall. Stairs led up to the ceiling, small rooms were built into larger rooms like a nesting doll. Some balconies face inward rather than outward. The chimneys are interrupted before reaching the ceiling. The door leading to one room is normal in size, and the other is tiny, as if made for Alice, who drank from a bottle.
The house is full of allusions and symbols. Someone thinks that there are so many "architectural blunders" in the house due to the fact that Sarah did not understand well how to build houses, and therefore made many mistakes in the drawings. But looking at some of the details, it's hard to believe.
It seems that she was inspired by "Alice in Wonderland", not otherwise. For example, in one of the ballrooms, the parquet board changes color depending on the lighting: if the sun falls in a special way, dark pieces of parquet become light, and light pieces - dark.
One of the windows turns the picture upside down, so it seems as if you are looking at an upside down world.
In 1906, a terrible earthquake happened in those parts. It destroyed three of the seven floors. Because of the disaster, Sarah was locked up in one of her bedrooms for several hours. Coming out of there, she told the builders to stop working on the facade of the building and just nail it down with boards. According to legend, Sarah thought she had angered the ghosts with her excessive craving for adornments, and left many of the damage unrepaired.
There were a lot of rumors around Sarah Winchester's personality: some considered her a "spirit", others just an eccentric rich woman, others argued that she was driven exclusively by philanthropy - she provided a lot of jobs.
Death of Mrs Winchester
Legend or not, Sarah seems to have pleased the ghosts. She died in her sleep when she was 83 years old. She was buried next to her husband and daughter. Sarah left a will, divided into 13 sections, and signed it 13 times. According to the will, everything, except the house, went to her niece Marian. Marian sold all the furniture she had at an auction.
Since not a single line was said about the house in the will, it was bought under the hammer by generous patrons who opened the house for tourists to visit almost immediately after the purchase.
Anastasia Maksimova
