Tours

Table Of Content

• In popular culture
• SOME SAY THE SYMBOLS IN THE HOUSE POINT NOT TO GHOSTS, BUT FRANCIS BACON.
• San Jose Museum of Art
• Demystifying the Winchester Mystery House
• California’s Dazzling Mosaic Tile House
• Building The Winchester Mansion
• The Terrifying True Story Of The Winchester Mystery House And The Tormented Heiress Who Built It

Legend has it that she did it to appease or confuse the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles. Getting to know the house is, in a strange way, like getting to know the woman who built it—and no ghost stories are necessary to marvel at its creativity and ambition. The most prevalent story is that Mrs. Winchester was haunted by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle.

In popular culture

The Winchester House has many 13-paned windows and 13-paneled ceilings, as well as 13-step stairways. But the pièce de résistance might be the house's 13th bathroom, which contains 13 windows of its own. An alternate theory on the Winchester House's perplexing design declares that Sarah was creating a puzzle full of encryptions inspired by the work of English philosopher Francis Bacon.

SOME SAY THE SYMBOLS IN THE HOUSE POINT NOT TO GHOSTS, BUT FRANCIS BACON.

First opened in 1990, the museum houses roughly 150 exhibits, ranging from classic displays to interactive real-world applications, and geared to kids as young as infants (the sweet spot, though, may be elementary-school age). Start by checking out Lupe, the replica of a woolly mammoth—whose real fossils were found in Silicon Valley—then take to the neighbouring dig pits to learn how archaeologists search for fossils. In other areas, kids can make art, blow giant bubbles with bubble rings, play with worms to learn about composting, and explore the mathematical magic of circles. The 1927 California Theatre, originally a grand movie palace, creates a lavish backdrop for performances by Symphony Silicon Valley and Opera San Jose, presenting classical works and chorale events. Even if you don’t step inside the beautiful theater, take special notice of the marquee out front.

San Jose Museum of Art

Over her lifetime until she died in 1922, Sarah expanded and renovated her home until it grew in size to 24,000 square feet and featured 160 rooms. Most of Llanada Villa was built in the Queen Anne Revival style, but some sections featured Victorian, Gothic, and Romanesque features. Originally, Sarah hired the services of two architects but eventually dismissed them and drew up many plans for her home herself.

Demystifying the Winchester Mystery House

Many visitors to the house and staff report unusual and unexplained sightings and sounds. Throughout the house, you can find staircases that lead to nowhere, doors that open onto walls, and rooms with windows on the floor. The bizarre design elements feed into the theory that Winchester was trying to trap and confuse the ghosts that haunted her, but Boehme said there's a more realistic explanation. Winchester designed the home with no blueprints and no formal design experience.

California’s Dazzling Mosaic Tile House

In the Daisy Bedroom—which is on the original tour—Winchester rang a bell to summon her servants, who couldn’t find her in the chaos. To this day, the cracked walls and torn wallpaper from that night remain, as do the panels of stained-glass flowers that give the room its name. “How would you feel if, all of a sudden, you got knocked out of bed by an earthquake? “You think the world is coming down around your ears.” After she was finally rescued, Winchester left the house and stayed on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay for a while. Perhaps the boat’s steadier rocking helped quell her fears. There’s a way that these reports of hauntings, the mythos behind Winchester herself, and the staff’s enthusiasm for it all create an atmosphere of suggestibility.

Central Valley

The Victorian and Gothic-style mansion is renowned for its size and its architectural curiosities and for the numerous myths and legends surrounding the structure and its former owner. In addition to daily tours, guests are encouraged to stroll around the property by taking the self-guided Sarah’s Garden Tour. In true roadside attraction fashion, all visitors exit through an extensive gift shop featuring a variety of souvenirs.

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The Victorian mansion, designed and built by the Winchester Rifle heiress, is filled with so many unexplained oddities, that it has come to be known as the Winchester Mystery House. "Outside in the front gardens of the mansion, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was what appeared to be a bushy-haired woman staring out of one of the windows on the second floor," a guest identified as N.R. To this day, Winchester House is a destination for believers who hope to have a paranormal encounter of their own. A popular spot for such activity is the corridors of the third floor, where tour guides have claimed to hear footsteps and disembodied voices whisper their names.

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Dive into interactive exhibits showing the power of technologies ranging from robots to gene-splicing to alternative energy. Let virtual butterflies alight on your arm, and let the kids play with the ultimate video games—you’ll probably want to play too. Another highlight is the Silicon Valley Innovation Gallery, showcasing the machines that revolutionize human thought, creativity, and communication.

We have been listed on plenty of “world’s most haunted places” lists, but we encourage you to come and find out for yourself. All that talk of paranormal sometimes worries parents that the tour will be to scary for children. Not to worry – all ages are welcome and the tour is very family friendly! Children five and under are free and ages 6-12 will need a ticket.

A few years after the death of her husband, Sarah left her home in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1885 to relocate to San Jose, California. Most likely, she moved west to live in a drier and warmer climate due to problems with rheumatoid arthritis, an illness that plagued her all her life. Here she purchased an eight-room farmhouse and ranch in 1886, which she called Llanada Villa. This would eventually become the Winchester Mystery House. The United States has many unique roadside attractions throughout the country that focus on the strange and unusual.

More striking, though, is the extraordinary artistic freedom she exercised in creating it, as well as the lengths to which today’s staff must go to keep the house intact and open. Construction lasted for thirty-eight years on the Winchester Mystery House, one of North America’s most unusual and eccentric homes located in the heart of San Jose, California. Through the 160-room labyrinth-style mansion built by Sarah Pardee Winchester, there are many beautiful and extraordinary examples of the Queen-Anne Victorian Style architecture.

Throughout the years-long construction of the Winchester Mystery House, Sarah Winchester would never confirm that she was building a haunted house. However, stories and rumors swirled throughout San Jose. Unfortunately, in 1904, an earthquake struck San Jose, and the Winchester Mystery House sustained a hefty amount of damage.

After the house was emptied, a local investor purchased the home for a cool $135,000. Just five months after Sarah Winchester died, the Winchester Mystery House was opened to the public for tours. Gold and silver chandeliers hung from the ceilings above hand-inlaid parquet flooring. Dozens of artful stained-glass windows created by Tiffany & Co. dotted the walls, including some designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself.