2 weeks ago randy and i went to the winchester mystery house in san jose, ca!!!! i have been wanting to go there for sooooo long, and it happens to be #19 on my 23 before 24 list. we needed to be in northern california for a wedding that weekend, so we just left an extra day early so we could fit this in.
if you're not familiar with the legend of the winchester mystery house, you should visit the website so you can read up. but basically, it was built by sarah winchester, who was the widow of the 2nd owner of the winchester rifle company. while living on the east coast, sarah lost her newborn daughter and husband within months of each other, so she went out west to seek solace. according to 'legend,' a psychiatrist told her that she would be haunted by the spirits of people who were killed by a winchester rifle, and to appease them she needed to continue to build and add onto her house. it was said she would hold 'spirit meetings' where they would talk to her and tell her what they wanted done to the house, which is what is usually given as an explanation as to why there are doors that open to nowhere and stair cases that go into the ceiling and windows that look into walls.
being the skeptics that we are, randy and i have deconstructed the story a little bit, and we don't necessarily think sarah winchester was loony. first of all, she was a bazillionaire and all alone, so she could do whatever the f she wanted. and apparently she wanted to build. i bet with all the construction workers there she never felt completely alone. also, on one of the tours we took, the tour guide said the way mrs. winchester built was that she never tore down a wall - if she wanted another wall somewhere, she just build one right on top of the other, which would account for windows looking into walls.
the house was neat, but because we sympathized with mrs. winchester more than just thinking she was crazy, it wasn't as spooky as i thought it was going to be. they do have special halloween tours, and i would be interested to see if they dress the place up at all to freak you out. it's definitely one of those things where if you've seen it once, you probably won't ever need to go again. but hey, it was on my list and definitely worth the visit!
No comments:
Post a Comment