Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbaumb here with a classic episode from the vault.
Speaker 1: This one tells the twisting tale of the purposefully odd
Speaker 1: Winchester House. I'm bringing it back because this is one
Speaker 1: story where the truth is just as strange as any
Speaker 1: fiction that could be concocted. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel
Speaker 1: bomb here. Most of us want to get home construction
Speaker 1: over as soon as possible. We worry about the expense
Speaker 1: and complain about the inconvenience. But for Sarah Winchester, construction
Speaker 1: was a way of life. For thirty eight years, she
Speaker 1: had construction going twenty four hours a day at her
Speaker 1: home in San Jose, California. This was no ordinary construction job. Though.
Speaker 1: The house is an odd ball labyrinth of rooms that
Speaker 1: at one point reached seven stories. It's filled with weird
Speaker 1: things like stairs and doors that go nowhere. Not to
Speaker 1: mention the ghosts. Sarah Winchester didn't start out looking for
Speaker 1: this kind of project. Born Sarah Party in eighteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: she was one of the social stars of New Haven, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Although she only stood four feet ten inches, she was
Speaker 1: known for her beauty and sparkling personality. In eighteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: Sarah married William Winchester, who was the heir of the
Speaker 1: Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The company had developed the Repeating rifle,
Speaker 1: a gun that was easy to reload and fired rapidly
Speaker 1: at a rate of one shot every three seconds. The
Speaker 1: gun was used by Northern troops in the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and it was also known as the Gun that Won
Speaker 1: the West. The young couple started a family in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, but their daughter Annie died in infancy and
Speaker 1: mister Winchester died of tuberculosis fifteen years later. Distraught over
Speaker 1: these losses, Missus Winchester visited a medium for spiritual guidance.
Speaker 1: The medium told her that the Winchester family had been
Speaker 1: struck by a terrible curse and was haunted by the
Speaker 1: ghosts of all those killed by the Winchester rifle. Their
Speaker 1: spirits were seeking vengeance and the only way to appease
Speaker 1: them was to build a house for them. But the
Speaker 1: ghosts had another request that the house never be completed.
Speaker 1: Never stop building, the medium told Missus Winchester, or you
Speaker 1: will die. We can't know exactly how she interpreted this, advice.
Speaker 1: She might have thought the spirits would get her if
Speaker 1: she stopped, or she might have seen the continuous construction
Speaker 1: as a path to eternal life. Missus Winchester headed west
Speaker 1: to build a home for herself and her ghosts. She
Speaker 1: bought a six room farmhouse on one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: two acres in California and set to work. She served
Speaker 1: as her own architect, but it's possible that some ghosts
Speaker 1: had a hand in designing the house as well. Every night,
Speaker 1: Missus Winchester would retreat to her seance room and receive
Speaker 1: instruction from the spirits on the progress of her house.
Speaker 1: The next morning should present her construction workers with hand
Speaker 1: drawn sketches of what was to be done. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: seemed she didn't care what she built, as long as
Speaker 1: she could hear the hammers of her crew. The crew
Speaker 1: might spend a month constructing a room, only to be
Speaker 1: ordered to destroy it the next month. Because Missus Winchester
Speaker 1: paid well, no one disputed her instructions. Missus Winchester had
Speaker 1: inherited twenty million dollars and just less than half of
Speaker 1: the Winchester Repeat Arms Company stock. That left Missus Winchester
Speaker 1: with a daily income of about one thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: spend on her house. That's equal to about twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a day in today's money. But what of
Speaker 1: those doors and stairs to nowhere? Doors may open onto
Speaker 1: walls or, in the case of a second story door
Speaker 1: to the outside, resulting in a big fall for anyone
Speaker 1: who might try to exit that way. A closet door
Speaker 1: on the second floor seance room opens onto a first
Speaker 1: floor sink several feet below. The stairs to nowhere are
Speaker 1: pretty much what they sound like. Stairs go up until
Speaker 1: they reach the ceiling, and then they just stop. These
Speaker 1: might have a simple explanation. The stairs were likely part
Speaker 1: of the original house that Missus Winchester bought, and when
Speaker 1: she started adding on to the home, she covered up
Speaker 1: the stairs. Whether it was accidentally or on purpose. Missus
Speaker 1: Winchester usually covered up her mistakes by just continuing to
Speaker 1: build around them. Because she had no master plan for
Speaker 1: the house, her architectural ideas didn't always work out. Since
Speaker 1: she had no deadline for completion, she'd either tear down
Speaker 1: the mistake or cover it up with something else. But
Speaker 1: the new stairs she built also zigzag back and forth,
Speaker 1: going around and around in circles, and most are only
Speaker 1: two inches about five centimeters tall. Some people think that
Speaker 1: these touches were designed to confuse the evil spirits that
Speaker 1: were haunting Missus Winchester. The height of the stairs served
Speaker 1: a very specific purpose, though she had very bad arthritis,
Speaker 1: and these small stairs allowed her to get around. However,
Speaker 1: Missus Winchester might have deliberately installed some of the other
Speaker 1: weird touches, believing that ghosts would get lost on stairs
Speaker 1: that went nowhere or accidentally step out of door that
Speaker 1: went outside. If this sounds strange to you today, you're
Speaker 1: not alone. Even at the time that Missus Winchester was
Speaker 1: building the house, she was regarded with suspicion. Some thought
Speaker 1: her in eccentric with too much money on her hands,
Speaker 1: and her home took on the nickname Mystery House not
Speaker 1: long after her death. Because Missus Winchester left no diary
Speaker 1: or other communication, we honestly have no idea what might
Speaker 1: have been going on in her mind. What we do
Speaker 1: have is her house, which is still open to tourists.
Speaker 1: Missus Winchester died in her sleep in nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: and the house was sold to a group of investors
Speaker 1: who wanted to create a tourist attraction. To this day,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know exactly how many rooms are in
Speaker 1: the house because people keep getting lost when they try
Speaker 1: to count, but it's estimated that about one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty rooms are in the home. It had reached seven
Speaker 1: stories by nineteen oh six, but the top three floors
Speaker 1: collapsed after the nineteen oh six San Francisco earthquake. Some
Speaker 1: other famous numbers associated with the house include its forty
Speaker 1: seven fireplaces, seventeen chimneys, two basements, six kitchens, ten thousand
Speaker 1: window panes, and four hundred and sixty seven doorways. Despite
Speaker 1: these impressive numbers, there are only two mirrors. Missus Winchester
Speaker 1: thought the ghosts were afraid of their own reflection. Missus
Speaker 1: Winchester also had an obsession with the number thirteen. Many
Speaker 1: things installed in the home feature thirteen of something a,
Speaker 1: thirteen window panes, thirteen wall panels, thirteen sections of flooring,
Speaker 1: thirteen stairs. In each staircase, there are thirteen bathrooms, sinks
Speaker 1: that have thirteen drain holes, and the sands room has
Speaker 1: thirteen coat hooks. And beyond the stairs and windows to nowhere,
Speaker 1: there are other architectural oddities all over the house. Stair
Speaker 1: posts were installed upside down, and chimneys that served no
Speaker 1: purpose are all over the house. There are cabinets that
Speaker 1: are less than an inch deep that's about two and
Speaker 1: a half centimeters. Missus Winchester ordered a beautiful and outlangily
Speaker 1: expensive tiffany glass window, but after she installed it, a
Speaker 1: wooden wall was built behind it so that sunlight could
Speaker 1: never shine through the panes. Missus Winchester was convinced that
Speaker 1: she lived with spirits, but are they still there today?
Speaker 1: Does the spirit of Missus Winchester herself walk the halls?
Speaker 1: Some psychics say yes, that upon visiting the house, they
Speaker 1: sent spirits wandering. Tour guides and visitors report mysterious footsteps,
Speaker 1: banging doors, and weird moving lights. Some see door knobs
Speaker 1: move by themselves and feel cold spots. It may be
Speaker 1: something you'll have to determine for yourself. The Winchester Mystery
Speaker 1: House offers daily tours, and for those who want to
Speaker 1: be particularly spooked, flashlight tours are offered on Halloween and
Speaker 1: all fridays that fall on the thirteenth of the month.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article What's so Scary
Speaker 1: About the Winchester House story on how Stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Molly Edmonds. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com, and it's produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.