Winchester House (22 photos) Bashny.Net

This is a huge mysterious house number 525 on Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California, which is visited by crowds of tourists from around the world.





While the mistress was alive, guests here are not named; even President Roosevelt, who tried to invite himself to tea, got turned down. Now the former possessions of Sarah Winchester, nee Sarah Lockwood Pardee, scurrying troops curious. But, by and large, the house just is not available to outsiders, as in the life of the owner. Some places, like some stories remain impenetrable to outsiders. House Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester, similar to the information senile arthritis fist. Fist hardly expands.









The maiden laughed Purdy would be if she predicted that the thirty-odd years in a row it will hold tea parties every night with ghosts. Life Sarah Pardee evolved intelligently and successfully. She was 25 when she in 1862 married William, son of "that" Oliver Winchester, whose production of multiply charged, is said to have decided the outcome of the Civil War in the United States.

Family rapidly grew rich on military contracts, the couple lived in love and prosperity. Small, less than five feet tall, but lovely Mrs. Winchester was the soul of a society in New Haven, Conn. But four years after the wedding in the family had an accident - soon after the birth of daughter Annie died.

Sarah almost mad, and only ten years later, as they say, came to her senses. Other children the couple Winchester was not. In 1881, William Winchester died of tuberculosis, leaving Sarah widow inheritance of $ 20 million and the daily income of one thousand (she got half of the revenues of the company). Mrs. Winchester was inconsolable. Trying to figure out what her fate so cruelly punished, she traveled to Boston to a medium.

Medium for a modest bribe communicated with the spirit of William Winchester. Spirit told me to tell Sarah that the family is the curse of those who died from high-quality products company Winchester. He also said that in order to save his own life, Sarah has to move to the west, to the sunset, and the place which it will indicate to stop and start building a house. Construction should not be terminated; if hammering subside, Mrs. Winchester died.



Widow gathered their belongings and headed west. In 1884, she got to San Jose, where, according to her confidence, the spirit of her husband told her to stop. She bought the house and began its reconstruction and extension. Sarah Winchester was engaged in these 38 years in a row, without resorting to the services of professional architects.



Now "Winchester House" three-story. In it about 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 40 staircases. The rooms doors in 2000, 450 doorways, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces. Architect who tries to find logic in the device at home, must hit neurosis.

The house was built in such a way to confuse the spirits that come to the soul of Mrs. Winchester. Therefore, the door opened here in the wall, and the ladder rest on the ceiling. The corridors are narrow and winding like a serpent loop. Some doors open to the outside of the upper floors, so inconsiderate guest falls directly into the yard, into the bushes; others are arranged so that, after passing the span, the guest must fall into the floor below the kitchen sink or break a window, arranged in the floor of the ground floor. Doors many bathrooms are transparent. Within the walls of open secret doors and windows through which you can quietly observe what is happening in adjoining rooms.

















The skeptic will notice that these traps, plain as a bear pit, give metaphysical ignorance elderly widow. Mystical symbolism of the house gives simplicity. All ladder but one composed of 13 stages. Many rooms and 13 windows. Luxury stained glass Tiffany composed of 13 segments. The abundance of fireplaces in the house due to the fact that, according to legend, the spirits could enter the house through the chimney pipe.

Other guests there were not expecting, and, apparently, quite content with Sara own ideas about the other. Everything in the house was tailored by the standards of the hostess. Stage low to them could easily climb sick old woman. To lean on a railing, should bend down - Sarah was undersized.

Corridors and bays are very narrow - Sarah was a blessing. It is not known if he knew of the existence of this house, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mrs. Winchester it works really could not read. But the house, the mistress of projects which charted on a napkin at breakfast seems to embody a fantasy writer. There could live Minotaur. Sarah Winchester was sure that spirits live here. Every midnight sounded the gong, and the hostess to retire in a special room for a seance. The servants heard during these hours sounds of the organ in which arthritis patients could not play hostess.









By 1906, the house grew to six floors. But there was an earthquake, and three upper floors collapsed. The hostess, fearing persecution of evil spirits, each night sleeping in a new place, and after the earthquake a servant who did not know where she was at that time, did not immediately found her under the rubble. Sarah interpreted the incident as an invasion of spirits in front of the house. 30 unfinished rooms were locked and boarded up, the construction continued. Unsuccessful fragments were destroyed, were built in their place new.





Sarah Winchester died in September 1922 at the age of 85 years. Construction poizderzhalo its coffers: in the safe did not have money. There were only a strand of hair, men's and infant, and the death certificate of her husband and daughter, as well as the will of the 13 items, signed by 13 times. The fate of the house is silent testament.

This story is too grotesque, too melodramatic. It is difficult to take seriously. However, it is absolutely true and, as such, chaste. Sarah Winchester may seem insane eccentric Rich Girl, foolishly squandered a multimillion-dollar inheritance, and her home - an expensive bulky nonsense. His space seems knackered; children there tired and crying. "Winchester House" simply ugly. But just as it is a rare malformation, and still the nausea, which corresponds to a critical consciousness, it must be assumed, the thirteenth, spiral stairs, pointing to the affiliation of the house to the field of art.