Macabre Mansion - Sarah Winchester's Architecture of Paranoia

“The description of peoples in their variety was one of the most valued parts of the narratives of travel . . . both for the entertainment value of the depiction of curious behavior, and for the philosophical issues which this evidence for variety raised about the existence, or not, of universal human traits.” - Joan Pau Rubies, “Travel Writing and Ethnography”

I travel so that I can understand more about human behavior. I have always been curious about what it is that makes people tick. But I have found that inevitably, the more I learn about human traits across lines of culture, the more I understand about my own experience.

It seems to me that the more I wander the strange corners of this world, the more I understand about what it means to be human. “Universal human traits” such as fear, loneliness, and isolation sink into every topsy-turvy corner of the Winchester Mansion, located in San Jose, California. It is here that Sarah Winchester, the sole heir to the Winchester fortune, went quietly insane.

Sarah was convinced that the souls of those killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. She had rooms upon rooms built in her Queen Anne style Victorian mansion, adding a labyrinth of annexes full of curiosities, doors and staircases which led nowhere - all in an attempt to outrun the retribution of the dead. Sarah was a woman who saw ghosts lurking in every shadow, and felt guilt like icy breath on the back of her neck.

According to legend, Sarah Winchester’s husband died of tuberculosis, leaving her with more than $20.5 million - equal to $543 million today. She also received nearly fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, equivalent to $26,000 today. These inheritances meant she had an obscene amount of wealth which she used to fund the ongoing construction of her mansion.

The house possesses an eerie beauty, evident in the attention to exquisite detail. Stained glass windows designed specifically for the mansion glitter with a delicate spider web motif, and the number thirteen repeats in motifs throughout the property. The grounds are lush and verdant.

A fireplace with detailed woodwork inside the Winchester Manson

Grieving, afraid, and filthy rich, Sarah was perhaps a perfect target for a psychic medium. This psychic told Sarah that she should travel West, where she must continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles. Sarah purposefully built her home to be confusing, nonsensical, and vast. Her goal was to disorient the vengeful spirits long enough to stay ahead of their fatal revenge. The cacophony of construction on the house did not cease for over over 38 years, according to the recorded tour of the estate. If the tour guides are to be believed, construction was halted only upon Sarah’s death.

Standing in Sarah Winchester’s seance room, I was struck by the story that Sarah had convinced herself was true: that consciousness continues long after our souls shuffle off this mortal coil, and that hungry, angry ghosts are very real. The house, like the narrative she constructed, was tangled in its own warped logic. I closed my eyes and waited for an icy hand to clutch me, to feel the hairs rise on my arms as her restless soul passed through on her flight from those who would wish her harm. I wondered if she found peace, in the end.

The traveler is one who wanders in search of a narrative. As Devdutt Pattanaik notes in his Ted Talk, East Versus West, The Myths That Mystify "every culture is trying to understand itself."

Storytelling is inherent in the human psyche, and those who seek out the strange and wild are in pursuit of answers - insights into their own humanity. The human condition often defies clear logic, and the places where mystery lurks can often cause a collision between the desire for answers and the delight in the unknown.

I am a storyteller, a traveler, and someone who has always been obsessed with the occult. Though this blog, I will attempt to regale you with stories of the unexplained. According to Steve Clark, “Travel writing has taken a mixed and middlebrow form throughout its history, and this gives the genre a peculiar recalcitrance. Anyone can have a go, and usually does.” So here I am, having a go, and this blog will absolutely take a middle-to-low-brow form. If you want a travel blog featuring the top ten beach destinations for a hot girl summer, this is not the place for you. I am a dark tourist, and these stories are not for the faint of heart.

But if you are interested in the macabre, the morbid, and the phantasmagorical, then you, my dear reader, are in the right place. Welcome.

After my tour of the Winchester Mansion, as I crossed the velvet green of the lawn, I stopped for a moment to look up into the windows of the house. Like dark eyes, they stared back into me. For an instant, I thought I saw a woman’s pale face.

I blinked.

She vanished.

Works Cited:

Clark, S. (1999). Introduction to Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit. Zed Books.

Pattanaik, D. 2009. East Versus West; The Myths That Mystify. Ted Talks

Pau Rubiés, J. (2002). Travel writing and ethnography. In P. Hulme & T. Youngs (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing (Cambridge Companions to Literature, pp. 242-260). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

“Sarah Winchester: Woman of Mystery". Winchester Mystery House, LLC. Retrieved May 13, 2021

"Winchester House". Office of Historic Preservation, California State Parks. Retrieved May 11, 2021