The story goes that Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, suffered the tragedies of her husband and infant daughter dying (some years apart), and visited a medium who told her she was cursed and haunted by victims of the Winchester rifles. To appease them, the medium said, the wealthy woman was to continuously build on a home that would contain these spirits. Moving west from Connecticut to San Jose, Ca., she began construction in 1884, and more or less continued until her death in 1922.
The construction on what would be a seven floor home (until a 1904 earthquake knocked it down to four) was bizarre, and erractic, with stairwells to ceilings, a door that opened to a steep drop, a window facing into the floor below, and so on.
The Winchester Mystery House is a peculiar, and fascinating part of paranormal pop culture that arrived during the height of Spiritualism in the U.S. This is one of my favorite "haunted" locations due to its historic significance. And with the Feb. 2, 2018, film by The Spierig Brothers, the tale comes to life, adapted in a horror movie that may educate the world as to this creepy abode.And as it happens, I've had the opportunity to tour the house with Syfy, and to talk with the directors about the upcoming movie. From what I can gather, the directors are adding their own spin on the story, and perhaps even suggesting that Clarke's character may have brought something with him into the home.
Check out my video below, as well as a trailer for Winchester.The official word:
"Inspired by true events. On an isolated stretch of land 50 miles outside of San Francisco sits the most haunted house in the world. Built by Sarah Winchester, (Academy Award®-winner Helen Mirren) heiress to the Winchester fortune, it is a house that knows no end. Constructed in an incessant twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week mania for decades, it stands seven stories tall and contains hundreds of rooms. To the outsider it looks like a monstrous monument to a disturbed woman's madness. But Sarah is not building for herself, for her niece (Sarah Snook) or for the troubled Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke) whom she has summoned to the house. She is building a prison, an asylum for hundreds of vengeful ghosts, and the most terrifying among them have a score to settle with the Winchesters..."