WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: What's with the Winchester Mystery House? 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.400 Hey everybody, it's me your old pal Josh, And for 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.440 this week's s Y s K Spooky Selects, I've chosen 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.080 How the Winchester Mystery House Worked. Uh. It debuted on 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.320 Halloween of two thousand thirteen, and um, on the surface, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.400 it's about some cookie rich woman who believed in ghosts 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.919 on her and so she made this crazy house that's 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.200 super interesting. But um, if you peel back beneath the 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.560 surface of the story a little more, you find like 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.920 a clear picture of the person um that she was. 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.560 And she was as interesting as her house was. So um, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.880 hopefully you'll enjoy this one. Uh. It probably won't scare 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.159 the pants off of you, but it's at the very 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:46.040 least interesting, So check it out and enjoy. Welcome to 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:55.680 Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.240 and happy Halloween, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.680 Go do what you're about to do, Chuckers and Jerry. 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.919 Jerry's saying, uh, well, you put the three of us together, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.400 me Josh Clark, there, Chuck Bryant and there Jerry. Yeah, 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.800 and you've got stuff. You know. The Halloween edition. We 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:19.840 got a big old tup of candy corn. Here we 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:24.720 got have you Have you tried Starburst candy corn? My goodness, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.640 I don't like candy corn, and I like Star Wars 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.520 candy corn. Now is it Starburster? Is it candy corn? 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.640 It's candy corn with Starburst flavors, but not Starburst texture. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.760 No candy corn texture. Okay, some mad scientists threw it 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.640 all together. Interesting, Yeah, I'll try it. You got one. 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.440 I have a warm one in my pockets, been in 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:47.919 there for a few days. Perfect. Here you go, soften 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:53.160 it up there. Oh that's delicious. Make a chewing Yeah, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:59.600 it's straw strawberry and lint. Yeah, it's exactly right. Chuck. Uh. Yeah, 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.080 so we got candy corn. It's a Halloween edition, and 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:06.560 we hope you enjoyed our Halloween episode. Our story. It's 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.280 probably my favorite thing of the year that in Christmas episode, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:14.239 we've gotta get cracking on the Christmas extravaganza. Yeah, work, 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.480 running out of stories, I probably you know, I got 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.720 one up my sleeve. I've got an idea. Yeah. Yeah. 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.919 Otherwise we can just make stuff up. Yeah you know. Yeah, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.840 and then everything worked out okay because it was Christmas 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:31.320 the end Chuck. Yes, have you ever heard of the 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:36.600 Winchester Mystery House. I have, indeed, I have to thank God, 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.080 because that'd be a surprise. If I was completely unprepared, 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:42.680 it would be I would be surprised. I can tell 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.880 you that. Yeah, uh yeah, I've heard of it. I've 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.680 never been there, but I would like to go for 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.440 sure and check it out. I might. I might do 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.600 that next time I'm in the Bay area, I might 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.840 venture towards San Jose to check this thing out. Yes, well, 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:57.839 I've already cleared it with you me that we're going 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.520 next time. We're in the San Francisco area. Right, how 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.600 far aways San Jose from San Francisco, I don't know close? Right? 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.920 Do you know the way to San Jose? I do 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.840 not know the way to San Jose. Apparently, Um, but 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.239 if I could find my way there, we would find 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.160 the Winchester Mystery House, because apparently it sticks out like 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.920 a sore thumb. I bet um. It was originally in 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.919 some pretty rural area, and over time, the the acreage 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.200 I think a hundred and sixty two acres is what 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.720 the Winchester House grounds eventually covered, has been whittled away 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.320 and now it's just like the suburbs with this enormous 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.840 Victorian mansion situated in the middle of it. Yeah, and 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.160 when we say enormous, we mean enormous. Um supposedly about 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.240 a hundred and sixty rooms. Even though, and I think 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.440 this is part of building up the lore, some say 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.040 they cannot be counted because you will get lost in 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.760 the house and never get an accurate count and never escape. 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:01.120 I say that's hokem, hokem, because hey, if you can 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:02.760 put a man on the moon, you can count the 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.080 rooms in a house. Yeah, and what do you suggest 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:06.960 using a post it note? Just put a post it 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.240 note up and yeah, you don't even need to write that. 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.040 Just the very presence of a post it note indicates 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.240 you're you've been there before. Then counter all the post 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.320 it notes, Right, you could just you could write the 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.760 numbers on them. Even better, you wouldn't even have to 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.160 count them. You just write one and then keep in 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:25.039 mind the last number you wrote down the right, the 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.560 next number that comes after that on the next post 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:29.320 It note. Right, And you know we should do it 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.520 would be funny if we did a little video series 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.640 where you and I are big smart guys tried to 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.200 do this and we kept getting confused I would watch that. 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:38.080 I would watch that over and over, and then we 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.799 find the lost wine cellar, and everything's kind of peters 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.320 out from there. Alright, So what we're talking about, well, 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.280 let's clue those of you who don't know what we're 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.279 talking about in we're talking about the Winchester Mystery House, 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.720 which was, as Chuck said, an enormous mansion of an 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.960 indeterminate number of rooms. I think they estimate a hundred 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.560 and sixty. But even um, the state of California on 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:05.640 their tourism website says, um, it is an odd dwelling 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.600 with an unknown number of rooms. A tourism website said that, yes, 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.600 because a tourist attraction exactly. They're trying to, you know, 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.640 draw people in with the mystery of the mystery. Yeah. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.560 And the whole thing was the brainchild and the result 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.960 of a four ft ten inch little uh firecracker. Yeah. 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.200 Nicknamed the Belle of New Haven in her day, named 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:34.880 Sarah Pardi who became Sarah Party Winchester. Yeah, new Haven, Connecticut. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.039 She's born in eighteen thirty nine, not New Haven, New Jersey. Um. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.600 And she was very smart, spoke four languages, could play 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:49.599 the piano like a champ with her elbows. Yeah, she's beloved. Um. 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.200 She married in eighteen sixty two William Winchester of the 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.279 Winchester Repeating Arms Company, because it's a big part of 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.600 the story, it is h they developed what was known 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.960 as the Peter the Repeating Rifle, which is the coolest 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.360 rifle ever. The Lone Ranger head one did he According 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:09.479 to the Lone Ranger placet that I have, he did. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.920 I believe that he mainly used the old revolver though, yeah, 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.719 and the um, the cudgel. Yeah, the rifleman famous for 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.640 the Rifleman used the repeater for sure. The Lone Ranger 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.080 did too, okay, Um. But basically it was a revolutionary 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.960 gun that you could fire really quickly. Um. And yeah, 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.600 you can fire once every three seconds, which was pretty 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.120 amazingly fast for a rifle especially. It was the gun 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.120 that won the West, and it was the gun that 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:38.040 helped the Northern troops defeat the Southern troops in the 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.080 Civil War. And when the west depends on your vantage point, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:45.920 but yes, it was the The westward expansion took place 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:50.440 at the barrel of the Winchester Repeating Rifle. M So 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.760 she marries William Winchester, heir to that fortune. Uh. They 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.840 started family in eighteen sixty six and very very tragically 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.920 lost their lone daughter, Annie in infancy, and it was 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.000 something that Sarah never recovered from. Basically, No, it was 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.400 a pretty sad thing to see it. Apparently the child 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.280 Um was alive for either twenty eight days or forty 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.320 two days, I guess, depending on who you ask. Um, 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.240 So she made it the term she was born, and 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.640 then she died of a wasting disease called morasthmus, which 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.760 is a disease of malnutrition. So no matter what they 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.560 fed her, she just wasn't taking in the nutrients and 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.400 she died of malnutrition. And at the time morasthmus was 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.080 still mysterious, so it seemed like, what the heck just 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.560 happened to my kid? I'm feeding the kid. Also, here 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.760 I go right along the edge of completely losing my 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.760 sanity forever, and I'll never be quite the same again. 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.440 But I'm gonna come back a little bit. And then 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.960 when I do a few years later, my husband's going 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.560 to die an early death at age forty three. Yeah, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.160 fifteen years later to be exact. And Um, which, by 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.840 the way, can I take a second here, Sure, so 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.200 money wrote in, and I don't I can't find the email, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:06.400 but they wrote in for our dying podcast, we mentioned 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.160 life expectancy and we said that, um, you know, we 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.640 made the assumption that people used to um only lived 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.320 at like age thirty or something like that, because the 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:20.000 average life expectancy was so low. And this this person 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.280 pointed out that that's not the case. That people typically 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.600 lived to old age like they live now. But the 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:32.280 infomortality rate was so high that if you took all 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.560 of the infant deaths and all the people who survived 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.800 it and put it together, you had an average life 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.319 expectancy of thirty. Right, So it's not like everyone was 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.400 dying in their forties. They were dying in their ones 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:45.560 and twos exactly. So if you made it out of 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.040 your ones and twos, you would probably live a pretty 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.040 long life. So that was the discrepancy that I never 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.040 understood until the person wrote in. So, whoever wrote in, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.959 thanks for writing that in. You didn't catch you a 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.880 name or anything. I don't know. Uh so where are we? 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:05.120 She she's lost her daughter, she's lost her husband. She's 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.640 very distraught. UM goes and sees a medium which was 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.200 a big deal at the time. Yeah, in Boston a 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.960 man named Adam Coons, And which was strange that it 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.720 was a male medium. It is because you know ladies, um, 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:20.640 which is why they're all called lady so and so. 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.920 You know, uh yeah, like you know, oh Madam, yeah, 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.800 or madam or like Lady Charlotte or whatever. Um, Lady 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.719 Charlotte's who I go too. That's why I buzz marketed her. No, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.240 you don't, do you really know? I con see Lady Adam. Um. 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.640 So anyway, she goes and sees Lady Adam, and he says, 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.320 you're gonna be haunted by ghosts for the rest of 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.680 your life because you married into a fortune of killing 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.920 and murdering with that Winchester rifle. Remember haunting you Remember 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.480 I said it was important that she married um Mr 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:03.280 Winchester right here, William. The Winchester family supposedly had a curse, 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:07.120 according to Lady Adam, that all of the people who 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.040 had died at the at the um other end of 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:15.800 the Winchester rifle now haunted the family, and they had 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.120 a listed demands that Sarah was going to have to 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:20.960 put up with or else she would be gotten by 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:25.640 the spirits too, and that's where the house was born. Basically, Yeah, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:28.560 the guy said, these spirits need a house, so you're 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.680 gonna have to build a house for him. More and 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.800 more of people are dying from the the rifle that 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.640 your husband's family created every day, so you're gonna have 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.840 to make it a big house. And you can never 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:43.200 cease construction. If you cease construction, you'll die. And there's 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.600 two different interpretations here, and they're not quite sure how 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.679 Sarah Winchester interpreted it, but whether if she stopped construction 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.080 she would die, or if she kept construction going she 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.280 would live forever eternal life. Because the people who are 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.560 into spiritualism, we're into that whole thing a lot too. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:05.439 But either way, she had her her walking papers, her instructions, um, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.400 and she decided to take them out west and follow 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:11.839 her husband, who who she believed was leading her, who 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.160 supposedly told her all this through the medium, and headed 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:19.560 towards California. Yeah, she visited had a Nissan Menlo Park 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.160 and eventually found a property three miles west of San 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.400 Jose and the Santa Clara Valley there and she said, 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.160 you know what, I'm gonna buy this land. I'm gonna 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.439 take this house and I'm going to build on it 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:38.760 until forever. And um, Lady Adam had a his cousin 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.160 was a contractor. That's not true. That would have been 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.480 great though. Yeah, it's like, so you have to build 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:50.679 and non stop. Here's my cousin, John Hanson. John Hanson 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.680 was in fact her foreman. Uh, even though Ms Mrs 0:11:54.720 --> 0:12:00.880 Winchester was her own architect, so hold on. So Mrs Winchester, um, 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.680 who's just really slightly off a rocker now at the 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.600 loss of her child and her husband has instructions that 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:12.240 she is to move west, start building forever a huge 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.960 house to how's the ghosts of all the people who 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.960 have died at the hands of her um husband's company's rifles. 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.480 That's where we're at right now. Before we're going to 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:37.360 further let's um, let's do a message break. Okay before 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.040 we left, UM, I sort of hinted that she was 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.040 her own architect, and she was. Not only did you 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.920 hint it, you said it. Not only was she her 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.000 own architect, but see she supposedly got instructions on building 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.720 through seances, right, and she had an architect at first, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.200 but she fired him later on, apparently, I think, because 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.400 he wouldn't listen to her. Oh, and she was like, look, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.840 I'm getting instructions from the other side. Pal are you 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.560 getting instructions from the inside. No, Well, then we go 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.679 my way. So she had a seance room and UM, 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:12.960 here's how she would conduct her seance. Would try and 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.880 trick the ghosts into not following her and disrupting the 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:22.800 seance um. So she would set out for the seance room. Um, 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.680 she would traverse basically a labyrinth of rooms and hallways 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:28.760 like she would push a button and a panel would 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:32.440 fly up. She would step quickly into their shut the door. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.120 She would open a window to that place, climb out 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.600 onto like a flight of outdoor steps that took her 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.280 down a story, come back inside like through a window. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.360 And she was basically trying to to lose these spirits 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.160 that she felt like we're tailing her until she could 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:53.000 finally get into her comforting seance room where she would 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.200 receive instruction on what to build next. And then when 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.680 she got into a seance room, which was the Blue room. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:00.319 It was at the center of the house and I 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.720 think the second floor. Um, she would get instructions I 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.560 think from her husband, supposedly, and then also a spirit 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.280 caretaker named Clyde, and she would get the instructions. At 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.400 twelve there would be a bell rung that's when the 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.360 spirits arrived at to another bell would ring, signaling their exit. 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.680 And she would do this every night, and then in 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.560 the morning she would go meet the foreman Hanson, John Hanson, 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.120 and say, here's what you guys do today, and he 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.720 would go, all right, but we should say that all 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:33.440 through the night, including at midnight at two and the 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.440 time when she was sleeping after the seance and before 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:40.560 she met Hanson, there was construction going on. Yeah, and um, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.720 like it was twenty four hours a day, sixty five 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.520 days a year, including Sundays, including holidays. There was always 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.040 somebody doing construction on that house. Yeah. She she apparently 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.880 like as long as she could hear those hammers nailing nails, 0:14:55.000 --> 0:15:00.240 then she felt at ease. Um. She would uh sign 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.280 rooms that would be built on top of other rooms. 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.440 She would build rooms apparently to get to those hundred 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.200 and sixty rooms. They estimate they may have built five 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.400 or six hundred over the span of those years, right, 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.720 because if there was something that got in the way, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.320 she would either build around it have it torn down. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.080 Sometimes there was even um it was even less explicable 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.080 why a room would get torn down, but she would 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.120 just order it torn down, even though say they've been 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.560 working on it a month up to that point. Yeah. 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.600 And the whole trick to all this is to pay well. Um, 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.320 if you weren't paying well, then you probably would have 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.360 had dudes walking off the job being like, you're crazy lady, 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.360 I'm out of here. Right. She paid double the day, right, yeah, 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:45.440 which is three bucks three yeah. And so the construction 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:47.760 dudes were happy to keep working on this what they 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:51.200 thought was this crazy old lady's plans um and they 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.400 probably frustrating, but that you know, they were getting rich 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.960 or not rich, but they were doubling their money, right, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.400 And I think over time to Chuck like, I get 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.760 the impression and that the people who worked for her, 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.280 both the construction workers who you know, I mean like 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.360 there would be once they came, they didn't leave unless 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:12.480 they were fired because the money was so good. Um. 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:16.640 So when you work for some crazy old lady for twelve, fifteen, 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:19.920 twenty years or whatever, like you're gonna start to develop 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.040 a sense of loyalty. And they She was very much 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.200 protected from the outside world by these people because her 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.280 neighbors thought she was a total wacko, maybe a little 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.320 evil who knows what's going on. She was very she 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.960 lived in seclusion. She always wore black, she always wore 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.040 a veil. Yeah. She Uh. One of the first things 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.200 she did was had built a private had a private 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.360 planet around the entire house. But she was also very 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.440 kind of children, especially orphans, would have them over for 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.000 ice cream. So it's not like she was some awful, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:55.840 mean old person. She was just mysterious and liked her 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.920 privacy mainly. Yeah, and apparently once she moved into town, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:02.960 um a lot of the local charities started getting anonymous 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.320 donations that they never got before she and she of 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:08.320 course she didn't need all the glory, but she was 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.159 still very charitable woman. Yeah, she had a bunch of money. Um. 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.359 The reason she was able to pay double was um 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.840 a big inheritance obviously about twenty million bucks and a 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:21.720 lot of stock in the Winchester Company, and um it 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.679 afforded her. They guessed about a thousand dollars a day 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:28.920 to spend on construction, which is like twenty grand now 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.359 seven and change a day. Day. And this is the 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.840 money mostly prior to the era of the income tax, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.560 So like that was all hers um I and she 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.879 ended up spending I think five point five million on 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:47.040 the house in nineteen two dollars. That's a lot of dough, 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.080 it really is. But she didn't have anything else to 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.320 do with it except give it away to orphans. That's true. 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:57.439 So um, all of this construction led to some very 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.000 strange design decisions. And we should say this is probably 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.400 a pretty good point to say, Mrs Winchester didn't leave 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.360 any diaries, any journals, she was never interviewed. Uh. All 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:10.800 we can say for sure is that she went to 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.960 a medium in Boston, received these instructions that she had 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.360 to build the house to appease the spirits, and that's 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.480 what she did. Uh. Everything else is kind of conjecture, 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:25.000 like her motivations. Beyond that, the details of her motivations 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.359 and what she thought and believed, um is conjectures. We 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.439 should probably say that, UM. And there's a lot of 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.720 room for misunderstanding. Like the staircases that she built had 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.040 lots of steps and they were like two inches high. Well, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:41.760 the reason that she did that was because she had 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:44.439 very bad arthritis, and those are the only types of 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.840 stairs that she could um climb, but they would also 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:49.480 double back all of a sudden, or go around in 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.960 crazy circles of A lot of people say that she 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.200 thought that you could kind of screw with the spirits 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.719 and throw them off your trail, I guess on your 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.720 way to the science room. Um, by having ars constructor 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.040 like that. At any rate, there's a lot of weird 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:08.000 design elements in this huge mansion. Yeah, the switchback stairs, 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.200 Um were seven flights that rose only nine ft forty 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:14.960 four steps total. She had stairs that would go down 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.399 leading two stairs that went up stairs that would go 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:23.399 into a ceiling. Chimneys that would stop short of the ceiling. Uh, 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.800 you know, hidden doorways, covered up stairwells. It was just 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.760 sort of a big, beautiful mess of design. There was 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:35.160 a there were doors that led from the inside out 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:37.560 to the outside, but it would just be a sheer 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.760 drop if you stepped out the door like that last 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.320 step as a doozy right. Um. There was an inside 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.959 door in the sands room, a closet door that opened 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.920 up onto the kitchen sink another story below. Um, there 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.879 was a corridor behind a cabinet that went along the 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.520 backside of thirty rooms. It's just all sorts of neat stuff. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:00.240 There's the very famous stairs that lead to nowhere. Yeah. Uh, 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:04.200 there were cabinets or only like two inches deep. Um, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.320 there was a grand ballroom, and you know, it wasn't 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.800 all just wacky stuff. It was like really gorgeous design 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:13.040 in places. Um. The grand ballroom was built without nails, 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:17.119 which was a feat of engineering in itself and was gorgeous, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:22.280 but never used because of an earthquake that was pretty 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.920 significant in her life. In nineteen o six, there was 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.840 an earthquake that Um. She was known for sleeping in 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.199 different rooms every night so she wouldn't be found out 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.680 by the ghosts, and she was actually trapped in the 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.760 Daisy room and not found for a little while by 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.160 her employees because they didn't know where she was after 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.240 this earthquake cabin right. Not only did the ghosts not 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.080 know where she was sleeping, her servants didn't either, So 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.000 she was in there for a few hours and it 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.760 f freaked her out, I'm sure, because despite the fact 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.359 that it had like totally killed a lot of people 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.360 in ravaged San Francisco and burned it down, she took 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.400 it as a sign that the ghosts were mad at her. 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.520 Um that they were afraid that construction was nearing an end, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.360 and so to appease them, she boarded up a lot 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.640 of the damaged um interior so that it could never 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.960 be repaired and then therefore the house could never be finished. Um. 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.080 We should also say that by this time the house 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.640 had reached seven stories, and the earthquake was so bad 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.399 it knocked off the top three I believe. Yeah, she 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.320 ended up sealing the front thirty rooms of the home. Uh, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.159 including the front entrance to the home. These like grand 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.200 front doors that they had just put in. Apparently only 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.800 three people the two guys that put in the door 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.040 and her were the only people to walk through them 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:39.719 before she sealed them off forever. Um. Well, she had 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:44.879 a beautiful tiffany stained glass window installed and then built 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.240 a wall behind it so no light can shine through it. Yeah, 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.080 you can only see it from the outside. I'm sure 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:53.880 it looks kind of dull. And then after the earthquake earthquake, 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.240 which I said freaked her out, Supposedly she went and 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.399 lived on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay for six years. 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:01.600 But that was nice. And then when she came back 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:06.879 there was it was different like before, there wasn't necessarily 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.400 much of a plan and so like if she ran 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:11.760 into trouble architecturally she just teared the thing down or 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.360 build around the problem. This was like a different kind 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:19.560 of frenetic pace and it was just like build whatever wherever. 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.199 Um after the earthquake really got to her, just like 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.840 crazy person building. Yeah, alright, chuckers, before we go any further, 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:43.359 how about another message break? Okay, so back to it, Um, 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:48.960 here's some numbers for you. Forty seven fireplaces, seventeen chimneys, uh, 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.520 two basements, six kitchens, ten thousand window panes, and four 0:22:53.600 --> 0:22:56.720 hundred and sixty seven doorways, and only two mirrors in 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.240 the whole house because of course, ghosts are rate of 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.840 their own reflection, and apparently the staff would sneak hand 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.800 mirrors so they can occasionally see what they look like 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:09.359