WEBVTT - What's with the Winchester Mystery House? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.439 Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.400 to you stuff you should know from house stuff Works 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:17.320 dot com. Hey and happy Halloween, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.599 I'm Josh Clark. Go do what you're about to do, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:28.880 Chuckers and Jerry. Jerry's saying, uh, you put the three 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.680 of us together, me Josh Clark, there Chuck Bryant, and 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.640 there Jarry. And you've got stuff you know, the Halloween edition. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.159 We got a big old tub of candy corn here 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:41.040 we got have you have you tried Starburst candy corn? 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.600 My goodness, I don't like candy corn and I like 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.040 Star Wars candy corn? Is it Starburster? Is it candy corn? 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:54.160 It's candy corn with star Warst flavors, but not Starburst texture. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.280 No candy corn texture. Okay, some mad scientists threw it 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.160 all together. Interesting. Yeah, I'll try it. You got one? 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:03.960 I have a warm one in my pockets, been in 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.440 there for a few days. Perfect. Here you go, soften 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:11.840 it up there, that's delicious. Make a chewing Yeah, it's 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:18.119 straw strawberry and lin. Yeah, it's exactly right. Chuck. Uh. Yeah, 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.560 So we've got candy corn. It's a Halloween edition, and 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.399 we hope you enjoyed our Halloween episode, our story. That's 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.320 probably that's probably my favorite thing of the year that 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:32.759 in Christmas episode, we're gonna get cracking on the Christmas extravaganza. Yeah, work, 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.200 running out of stories, I'd probably and I got one 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.759 up my sleeve. I got an idea. Yeah, yeah, otherwise 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.399 we can just make stuff up. Yeah, you know. Yeah, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.440 and then everything worked out okay because it was Christmas 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:49.800 the end, Chuck. Yes, have you ever heard of the 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:55.120 Winchester Mystery House? I have, Indeed, I have to, thank God, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.560 because that'd be a surprise. If I was completely unprepared, 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.200 it would be I would be surprised. I can tell 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.520 you that. Uh yeah, I've heard of it. I've never 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.600 been there, but I would like to go for sure 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.080 and check it out. I might. I might do that 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.920 next time I'm in the Bay area, I might venture 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.400 towards San Jose to check this thing out. Yes, well, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:16.320 I've already cleared it with you me that we're going 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.040 next time we're in the San Francisco area. Great, how 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.079 far always San Jose from San Francisco, I don't close, right, 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:25.400 Do you know the way to San Jose. I do 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.440 not know the way to San Jose apparently, um, but 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:30.760 if I could find my way there, we would find 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.680 the Winchester Mystery House, because apparently it sticks out like 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:38.160 a sore thumb. Um. It was originally in some pretty 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.320 rural area, and over time, the the acreage a hundred 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.320 and sixty two acres is what the Winchester House grounds 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.040 eventually covered, has been whittled away and now it's just 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:53.480 like the suburbs with this enormous Victorian mansion situated in 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.320 the middle of it. Yeah. And when we say enormous, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:01.040 we mean enormous um supposedly about a hundred in sixty rooms. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.799 Even though and I think this is part of building 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:09.519 up the lore, some say they cannot be counted because 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.120 you will get lost in the house and never get 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:16.760 an accurate count and never escaped. I say that's hoke 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.160 hokem because hey, if you can put a man on 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.600 the moon, you can count the rooms in a house. Yeah. 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:24.600 And what do you suggest using a post it note? 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:27.639 Just put a post it note up and yeah, you 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:29.760 don't even need to write that. And that's the very 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.160 presence of a post it note indicates you're you've been 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.400 there before, and counter all the post it notes right. 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.680 You could just you could write the numbers on them. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.720 Even better, you wouldn't even have to count them. You 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.320 just write one and then keep in mind the last 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.440 number you wrote down the right, the next number that 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.840 comes after that on the next post it note, right, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:48.120 and you know what we should do. It would be 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.360 funny if we did a little video series where you 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.360 and I a big smart guys, tried to do this 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.000 and we kept getting confused. I would watch that, Yeah, 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:56.560 I would watch that over and over, and then we 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.280 find the lost wine cellar and everything's kind of peters 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.800 out from there. Alright, So what we're talking about, well, 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:05.760 let's clue those of you who don't know what we're 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.800 talking about in we're talking about the Winchester Mystery House, 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.200 which was, as Chuck said, an enormous mansion of an 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.479 indeterminate number of rooms. I think they estimate a hundred 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.080 and sixty. But even um, the state of California, on 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.160 their tourism website says, um it is an odd dwelling 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.080 with an unknown number of rooms. A tourism website said 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.680 that yes, because there's a tourist attraction exactly. They're trying to, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.159 you know, draw people in with the mystery of the 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.200 mystery house. Yeah. And the whole thing was the brainchild 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:43.080 and the result of a four ft tennant little uh 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.839 firecracker nicknamed the Belle of New Haven in her day, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:53.400 named Sarah Party who became Sarah Party Winchester. Yeah, new Haven, Connecticut. 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.520 She's born in eighteen thirty nine, not new Haven, New Jersey. Um, 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.880 and she was. It's very smart, spoke four languages, can 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.400 play the piano like a champ with her elbows. Yeah, 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.920 she's beloved. Um. She married in eighteen sixty two William 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.279 Winchester of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Because it's a 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.760 big part of the story, it is they developed what 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.280 was known as the Repeater, the repeating rifle, which is 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.480 the coolest rifle ever. The Lone Ranger head one did 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.480 he according to the Lone Ranger placet that I had, 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:29.839 he did. I believe that he mainly used the old 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.599 revolver though. Yeah, and um the cudgel. Yeah, the rifle 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.599 famous for the rifleman used the repeater for sure. The 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.800 Lone Ranger did too, Okay, Um, But basically it was 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.320 a revolutionary gun that you could fire really quickly. Um. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.240 And yeah, you could fire once every three seconds, which 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:51.320 is pretty amazingly fast for a rifle. Especially. It was 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.279 the gun that won the West, and it was the 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.400 gun that helped the Northern troops defeat the Southern troops 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.440 in the Civil War. And when the west depends on 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:03.919 your vantage point, yes, it was the The westward expansion 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.560 took place at the barrel of the Winchester repeating rifle. M. 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:13.160 So she marries William Winchester, heir to that fortune. Uh. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.719 They started family in eighteen sixty six and very very 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:22.240 tragically lost their lone daughter, Annie in infancy, and it 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.240 was something that Sarah never recovered from. Basically, No, it 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.359 was a pretty sad thing to see if apparently the 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.520 child um was alive for either twenty eight days or 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.880 forty two days, I guess, depending on who you ask. Um. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:37.760 So she made it the term she was born, and 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.520 then she died of a wasting disease called mora asthmus, 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.080 which is a disease of malnutrition. So no matter what 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.640 they fed her, she just wasn't taking in the nutrients 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.280 and she died of malnutrition. And at the time mora 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.240 asthmus was still mysterious, so it seemed like, what the 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.200 heck just happened to my kid? I'm feeding the kid. Also, 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.159 here I go right along the edge of completely losing 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.240 my sanity forever, and I'll never be quite the same again. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.960 But I'm gonna come back a little bit. And then 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.600 when I do a few years later, my husband's gonna 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.760 die an early death at age forty three, fifteen years 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:15.920 later to be exact. And um, which, by the way, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.440 can I take a second here? Somebody wrote in, and 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.480 I don't. I can't find the email, but they wrote in. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.960 For our Dying podcast, we mentioned life expectancy and we 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.680 said that, um, you know, we made the assumption that 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.120 people used to um only lived at like age thirty 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.320 or something like that, because the average life expectancy was 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.560 so low. And this this person pointed out that that's 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.280 not the case. That people typically live to old age 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.640 like they live now. But the infanmortality rate was so 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:51.760 high that if you took all of the infant deaths 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:53.920 and all the people who survived it and put it together, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.160 you had an average life expectancy of thirty. So it's 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.840 not like everyone's dying in their forties. They were dying 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.680 in their ones and twos exactly. So if you made 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:05.920 it out of your ones and twos, you would probably 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.040 live a pretty long life. So that was the discrepancy 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.760 that I never understood until the person wrote in. So, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.240 whoever wrote in, thanks for writing that in. You didn't 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:19.640 catch your name or anything. I don't know. Uh so 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.360 where are we? She she's lost her daughter, she's lost 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.760 her husband, she's very distraught. Um goes and sees a medium, 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.600 which was a big deal at the time. Yeah, in Boston, 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.360 a man named Adam Coots, and which was strange that 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:37.240 it was a male medium. It is because you know ladies, um, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.640 which is why they're all called lady so and so right, 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:45.480 you know, uh yeah, like you know, oh Madam, yeah, 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.720 or madam or like Lady Charlotte or whatever. Um, Lady Charlotte, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:52.160 who I go too. That's why I buzz marketed her. No, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.640 you don't, do you really know? Because see Lady Adam. Um. 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.960 So anyway, she goes and sees Lady Adam, and he said, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.720 as you're gonna be haunted by ghosts for the rest 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.520 of your life because you married into a fortune of 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.960 killing and murdering with that Winchester rifle. Yea, So remember haunting. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.040 You remember I said it was important that she married 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:21.199 um Mr Winchester. Right here, William. The Winchester family supposedly 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.800 had a curse, according to Lady Adam, that all of 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:28.760 the people who had died at the at the other 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.880 end of the Winchester rifle now haunted the family, and 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.280 they had a listed demands that Sarah was going to 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.760 have to put up with or else she would be 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.080 gotten by the spirits too. And that's where the house 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.280 was born. Basically, Yeah, the guy said, these spirits need 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:47.880 a house, so you're gonna have to build a house 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.240 for him. More and more people are dying from the 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.679 the rifle that your husband's family created every day, so 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:56.640 you're gonna have to make it a big house. And 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.480 you can never cease construction. If you cease construction, you'll die. 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.760 And there's two different interpretations here, and they're not quite 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.240 sure how Sarah Winchester interpreted it. But whether if she 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.880 stopped construction she would die, or if she kept construction 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.520 going she would live forever, eternal life. Because the people 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:16.560 who are into spiritualism, we're into that whole thing a 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:21.840 lot too. But either way, she had her her walking papers, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.800 her instructions, um, and she decided to take them out 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.520 west and follow her husband, who who she believed was 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.880 leading her, who supposedly told her all this through the medium, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:37.360 and headed towards California. Yeah, she visited head a Nissan 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.400 Menlo Park and eventually found a property three miles west 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:45.480 of San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley there, and 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:47.200 she said, you know what, I'm gonna buy this land. 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.640 I'm gonna take this house and I'm going to build 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:54.880 on it until forever. And Um, Lady Adam had a 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.440 his cousin was a contractor. That's not true. That would 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.440 have been great though. Yeah, It's like, so you have 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:08.760 to build and NonStop. Here's my cousin, John Hanson. John 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.600 Hanson was in fact or foreman. Uh even though Ms 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.439 Mrs Winchester was her own architect, So hold on. So 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:21.640 Mrs Winchester, um, who's just really slightly off a rocker 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.199 now at the loss of her child and her husband 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:29.040 has instructions that she is to move west start building 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.880 forever a huge house to how's the ghosts of all 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.280 the people who have died at the hands of her 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.920 um husband's company's rifles. That's where we're at right now. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:49.600 Before we're going further, let's um, let's do a message break, Okay, 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.680 before we left, UM, I sort of hinted that she 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.600 was her own architect, and she was. Not only did 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.200 you hint it, you said it. Not only was she 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.079 her own arc deck. But see, she supposedly got instructions 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.920 on building through seances, right, And she had an architect 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.440 at first, but she fired him later on, apparently, I think, 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.040 because he wouldn't listen to her, and she's like, look, 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.480 I'm getting instructions from the other side, paler, are you 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.200 getting instructions from the side? No, Well, then we go 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.480 my way. So she had a seance room, and here's 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.160 how she would conduct her seance. Would try and trick 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:31.480 the ghosts into not following her and disrupting the seance um. 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.440 So she would set up for the seance room. Um. 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.240 She would traverse basically a labyrinth of rooms and hallways 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.440 like she would push a button and a panel would 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.080 fly up. She would step quickly into their shut the door. 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.760 She would open a window to that place, climb out 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.240 onto like a flight of outdoor steps that took her 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.920 down a story come back inside like through a window. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:59.000 And she was basically trying to to lose these spirits 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.800 that she felt like we're tailing her until she could 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.640 finally get into her comforting science room where she would 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.800 receive instruction on what to build next. And then when 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.320 she got into a sance room, which was the Blue room. 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:12.960 It was at the center of the house and I 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.360 think the second floor. Um, she would get instructions I 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.200 think from her husband supposedly and then also a spirit 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.280 caretaker named Clyde, and she would get the instructions. At twelve, 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.400 there would be a bell rung. That's when the spirits 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.000 arrived at to another bell would ring, signaling their exit. 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.400 And she would do this every night and then in 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.200 the morning she would go meet the foreman Hanson, John Hanson, 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.760 and say here's what you guys do today, and he 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.360 would go, all right, but we should say that all 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.120 through the night, including at midnight at two and the 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.079 time when she was sleeping after the science and before 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:53.160 she met Hanson, there was construction going on. Yeah, and um, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.360 like it was twenty four hours a day, sixty five 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.800 days a year, including Sundays, including holidays, there was all 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.680 somebody doing construction on that house. Yeah. She she apparently 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.520 like as long as she could hear those hammers nailing nails, 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.880 then she felt at ease. Um. She would uh design 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.920 rooms that would be built on top of other rooms. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.080 She would build rooms apparently to get to those hundred 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.840 and sixty rooms. They estimate they may have built five 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.040 or six hundred over the span of those years. Right, 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.360 Because if there was something that got in the way, 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.960 she would either build around it have it torn down. 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.760 Sometimes there was even um it was even less explicable 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:37.720 why a room would get torn down, but she would 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.760 just order it torn down, even though say they've been 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.160 working on at a month up to that point. Yeah. 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.240 And the whole trick to all this is to pay well. Um, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:47.960 if you weren't paying well, then you probably would have 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:50.000 had dudes walking off the job being like, you're crazy lady, 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.000 I'm out of here. Right. She paid double the day rate, yeah, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:58.080 which is three bucks three Yeah, And so the construction 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.400 dudes were happy to keep working on this. What they 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.760 thought was this crazy old lady's plans um and they frustrating, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.640 but that you know, they were getting rich or not rich, 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.080 but they were doubling their money, right, And I think 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.000 over time to Chuck, like, I get the impression that 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.520 the people who worked for her, both the construction workers 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.400 who you know, I mean like there would be once 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.720 they came, they didn't leave unless they were fired because 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:26.360 the money was so good. Um, so when you work 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.000 for some crazy old lady for twelve, fifteen, twenty years 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.880 or whatever, like, you're gonna start to develop a sense 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.280 of loyalty. And they they she was very much protected 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.280 from the outside world by these people because her neighbors 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.280 thought she was a total whacko, maybe a little evil 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:44.960 who knows what's going on? And she was very she 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.600 lived in seclusion. She always wore black, she always wore 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.680 a veil. Yeah, she uh. One of the first things 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.840 she did was had built a private had a private 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.040 planet around the entire house. But she was also very 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.960 kind of children, especially or friends would have them over 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.640 for ice cream. So it's not like she was some awful, 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:08.480 mean old person. She was just mysterious and liked her 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.560 privacy mainly. Yeah, And apparently once she moved into town, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.560 um a lot of the local charities started getting anonymous 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.000 donations that they never got before. She and she of 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:20.960 course she didn't need all the glory, but she was 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.800 still very charitable woman. Yeah, she had a bunch of money. Um. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.600 The reason she was able to pay double was a 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.720 big inheritance obviously about twenty million bucks and a lot 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:35.000 of stock in the Winchester Company, and um, it afforded her. 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.920 They guessed about a thousand dollars a day to spend 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.680 on construction, which it's like twenty grand now and change 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.360 a day day. And this is good money, mostly prior 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.560 to the era of the income tax. So like that 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.040 was all hers. Um. I mean, she ended up spending 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.520 I think five point five million on the house in 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:00.360 nineteen dollars. That's a lot of dough, it really is. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.080 But she didn't have anything else to do with it 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.880 except give it away to orphans. That's true. So, um, 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:11.600 all of this construction led to some very strange design decisions. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.159 And we should say this is probably a pretty good 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.680 point to say, Mrs Winchester didn't leave any diaries, any journals, 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.040 She was never interviewed. Uh. All we can say for 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.040 sure is that she went to a medium in Boston, 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.679 received these instructions that she had to build the house 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.800 to appease the spirits, and that's what she did. Everything 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:36.200 else is kind of conjecture, like her motivations. Beyond that, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.840 the details of her motivations and what she thought and believed, 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:43.439 um is conjectures. We should probably say that, um, And 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:48.000 there's a lot of room for misunderstanding. Like the staircases 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.959 that she built had lots of steps and they were 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.640 like two inches high. Well, the reason that she did 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.280 that was because she had very bad arthritis, and those 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.200 are the only types of stairs that she could um climb. 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:01.560 But they would also double back all of a sudden, 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.919 or go around in crazy circles of A lot of 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:05.800 people say that she thought that you could kind of 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.560 screw with the spirits and throw them off your trail. 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.240 I guess on your way to the sance room. Um, 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.800 by having stairs constructed like that. At any rate, there's 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.240 a lot of weird design elements in this huge mansion. Yeah. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:23.160 The switchback stairs, um were seven flights that rose only 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.000 nine ft forty four steps total. She had stairs that 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.639 would go down leading two stairs that went up stairs 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.000 that would go into a ceiling, chimneys that would stop 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:38.680 short of the ceiling. Ah, you know, hidden doorways covered 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.879 up stairwells. It was just sort of a big beautiful 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.720 mess of design. There was a there were doors that 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.320 led from the inside out to the outside, but it 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.320 would just be a sheer drop if you stepped out 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.800 the door, like that last step as a doozy right. Um. 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.399 There was an inside door in the sance room, a 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.879 closet door that opened up onto the kitchen sink another 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.520 story below. Um, there was a corridor behind a cabinet 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.960 that went along the backside of thirty rooms. It's just 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:10.399 all sorts of neat stuff. There's the very famous stairs 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:14.040 that lead to nowhere. Yeah, there were cabinets or only 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:18.160 like two inches deep. Um. There was a grand ballroom, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.040 and you know, it wasn't all just wacky stuff. It 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.280 was like really gorgeous design in places. Um. The grand 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.359 ballroom was built without nails, which was a feat of 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:31.400 engineering in itself and was gorgeous, but never used because 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.880 of an earthquake that was pretty significant in her life 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.480 in nineteen o six, there was an earthquake that Um. 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.520 She was known for sleeping in different rooms every night 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.159 so she wouldn't be found out by the ghosts, and 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.840 she was actually trapped in the Daisy room and not 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.679 found for a little while by her employees because they 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:51.919 didn't know where she was after this earthquake. Cabin right. 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:53.919 Not only did the ghosts not know where she was sleeping, 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.639 her servants didn't either, So she was in there for 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.520 a few hours and it f freaked her out. Oh, 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:01.960 I'm sure, because despite the fact that it had like 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.560 totally killed a lot of people in ravaged San Francisco 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:07.520 and burned it down, she took it as a sign 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.080 that the ghosts were mad at her um, that they 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.680 were afraid that construction was nearing an end, and so 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.200 to appease them, she boarded up a lot of the 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.000 damaged um interior so that it could never be repaired 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.680 and then therefore the house could never be finished. We 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:26.920 should also say that by this time the house had 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.320 reached seven stories, and the earthquake was so bad it 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.320 knocked off the top three I believe. Yeah, she ended 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.960 up sealing the front thirty rooms of the home, uh, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.800 including the front entrance to the home. These like grand 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:43.840 front doors that they had just put in. Apparently only 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.440 three people the two guys that put in the door 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.680 and her were the only people to walk through them. 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.359 Before she sealed them off forever Um. What she had 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:57.520 a beautiful tiffany stained glass window installed and then built 0:20:57.520 --> 0:20:59.639 a wall behind it so no light could shine through it. 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:01.520 You can only see it from the outside, and I'm 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.640 sure it looks kind of dull. And then after the 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.600 earthquake earthquake, which I say freaked her out, supposedly she 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.119 went and lived on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.720 for six years. And then when she came back there 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.760 was it was different Like before, there wasn't necessarily much 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.280 of a plan and so like if she ran into 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.680 trouble architecturally, she just teared the thing down or build 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.200 around the problem. This was like a different kind of 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:33.440 frenetic pace and it was just like build whatever wherever Um. 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.280 After the earthquake really got to her, just like crazy 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:39.480 person building. Yeah, alright, Chuckers, before we go any further, 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:50.639 how about another message break? Okay, So back to it, Um, 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:56.280 here's some numbers for you. Forty seven fireplaces, seventeen chimneys, uh, 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:00.840 two basements, six kitchens, ten thousand window panes, and four 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.040 hundred and sixty seven doorways and only two mirrors in 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.560 the whole house because of course, ghosts are afraid of 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.160 their own reflection, and apparently that staff would sneak hand 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.080 mirrors so they can occasionally see what they look like 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:16.720 after getting out of the shower. But she didn't want 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:18.840 have anything to do with the mirrors though. Yeah. She 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:23.119 Um also supposedly would fire staff who saw her without 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:26.960 her veil on. Apparently her butler, UM and her niece 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.080 were the only people who could see her without a vail. 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.160 And if you saw her without a vail, no hard feelings, 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:36.320 but you're cute. So we've talked a lot about the 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:38.640 fact that she worked as her own designer and made 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.080 all these weird, terrible choices that made no sense. But 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.639 we also mentioned earlier she was a very smart lady. 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.640 So she actually learned over the years more about design 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:54.000 and architecture and got better at it um and developed 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:57.080 a skill. And she actually had some innovations in her 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:01.119