SAN JOSE AND THE MYSTERY HOUSE

About an hour and a half southwest of Modesto is the city of San Jose and a mystery house called the Winchester House.  The house, built between 1884 and 1922, was under construction for 38 continuous years. 

The owner, Mrs. Sarah Winchester, was the wife of the inventor of the Winchester Rifle.  The rifle, nicknamed “the Gun that Won the West,”  was given this name because it was used in settling the West.  Mrs. Winchester was very eccentric and it was said she believed in ghosts.  A psychic told her she needed to move west and build a house to appease or calm the spirits of all the people who had been killed by the Winchester Rifle. 

Mrs. Winchester followed the advice of the psychic, moved to California and started to build her house which was under construction day and night for 38 years.  During the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the tremors were felt from Oregon in the North to Los Angeles in the South to include San Jose.  At the time, Mrs. Winchester was sleeping in her favorite room.  When the quake struck, the house was damaged and she was locked in her room.  When her employees rescued her, it is said she sealed up the room and supposedly never slept there again.  There are many odd things in the house – to include a stairway that ends at a wall; doors that open into walls, not rooms; steps that are 2” tall; hidden doors and walkways; and a stain glass window that is installed on a wall that doesn’t get any sun. 

The house has 160 rooms to include 40 bedrooms and 10,000 window panes.  For its time, the house also had modern bathrooms and plumbing.  In today’s dollars, it cost over $70 million dollars to build.  It takes more than 22,000 gallons of paint to paint the house, and once the painters finish, they start all over again.  Today, the Winchester Mystery House and the surrounding gardens are open for guided tours.   There is even a “flashlight tour” on Halloween on every Friday the 13^th.     

Next we will head South to visit the towns of Monterey and Carmel.