 The first time I read about the Winchester Mansion I was amazed by the house and about the woman behind it.
As I researched the stories that had to do with Sarah Winchester, it was no surprise that most was made up, or there were no proof that the story was true to start out with. What I did find was a woman who was ahead of her time, someone who stood her ground on what she wanted to do, and how she wanted it done no matter who may have disagreed with it.
Do I believe that the beautiful mansion that she built is haunted by her? "yes" but not for the reasons that others do, I believe that she still visits the house. This is the project that she put her heart and soul into, a place where she could get the privacy that she wanted, reflect on those people that she cared about that had past on, and those she was close to that was still living.
I also believe that some of the workers that help build the mansion also still may visit now and then. My husband is in the construction business, and when we go by a place that he was excited about doing, he will always bring up that he had something to do with the home or business being there. When I asked why he mentioned it? he said that when the kids get older our kids will tell their kids and they would always know who he was.
So when you visit the Winchester Mansion and you run into a worker still admiring the job he did in life, give him a smile as to say you sure did a great job.
MOST COMMAN STORY ABOUT THE MANSION:
 The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years and is reputed to be haunted. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, but is now a tourist attraction. Under Sarah Winchester's guidance, construction on the house continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, until her death 38 years later on September 5, 1922 [1]. The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million.
View of the mansion from the southeastThe mansion is renowned for its size and lack of a master building plan. According to popular belief, Sarah Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California.
Deeply saddened by the deaths of her daughter and husband, and
seeking solace, Sarah Winchester consulted a medium on the advice of a friend. According to popular history, the medium, who has become known colloquially as the "Boston Medium", told Winchester that there was a curse upon the Winchester family because the guns they made had taken so many lives. She told Winchester that "thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance."
Although this is disputed, many believe the Boston Medium told her she needed to leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must "build a home for yourself and for the spirits who have fallen from this terrible weapon, too. You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die." Whether this tale is true or not, Winchester did move west, settling in California. Some believe Winchester followed the medium's directions to distract the spirits she believed were hunting her, and commenced construction on her new home. Urban legend states that Sarah slept in a different room each night for some time. However, this is not true. She had two main bedrooms-- the daisy bedroom at the front of the house where she slept prior to the 1906 earthquake (and, was subsequently trapped in when the chimney collapsed), and the bedroom where she died. The second bedroom is featured on the tour, and is one of the few fully-furnished rooms in the estate, though none of the furniture is authentic.
Sarah Winchester inherited more than $20 million upon her husband's death. She also received nearly 50 percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, none of which was taxable until 1913. This amount is roughly equivalent to $21,000 a day in 2006 dollars. All of this gave her a tremendous pool of wealth from which to draw to fund construction on the mansion.
Taken from the Winchester site at bottom of page
THE MANSION TODAY:
Prior to the 1906 earthquake, the house had been built up to seven stories tall, but today the highest point is the fourth floor. The house is predominantly made of redwood frame construction, with a floating foundation that is believed to have saved the estate from total collapse in both the 1906 earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. There are 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms. The house also has 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Winchester's property was some 162 acres (650,000 m²) at one time, but now the estate is just 4.5 acres (24,000 m²) — the minimum necessary to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. It has gold and silver chandeliers and inlaid parquet floors and trim. There are doors and stairways that lead nowhere and a vast array of colors and materials. Before the availability of elevators, special "easy riser" stairways were installed to allow Winchester access to every part of the mansion, despite her severe arthritis. Roughly 20,000 gallons (76,000 litres) of paint are required to paint the house. Due to the sheer size of the house, by the time every section of the house is painted, the workers must start repainting again.
The house also has many conveniences that were rarely found at the time of its construction, including steam and forced-air heating, modern indoor toilets and plumbing, push-button gas lights, hot shower from indoor plumbing and even three elevators, including one with the only horizontal hydraulic elevator piston in the United States.
The house retains unique touches that reflect Winchester's beliefs and her reported preoccupation with warding off malevolent spirits. The number thirteen and spider web motifs, which she considered to be lucky, reappear around the house. For example, an expensive imported chandelier that originally had 12 candle-holders was altered to accommodate 13 candles, wall clothes hooks are in multiples of 13, and a spider web-patterned Tiffany window contains 13 colored stones. In tribute, the house's current groundskeepers have created a topiary tree shaped like the number 13.
Today, several different tours of the house are available, including flashlight tours at night on dates around Halloween and each Friday the 13th.
Taken from the Winchester site at bottom of page
TRUE STORY ABOUT SERAH WINCHESTER AND FAMILY:
 A portrait of Sarah Winchester at the time of her wedding.
Sarah L. Pardee grew up in New Haven and married William Wirt Winchester, son of the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. William died at age 43 in March 1881' a victim of Tuberculosis. The couple's infant daughter, Anne Pardee, had died 15 years earlier. The deaths devastated Sarah and left her the sole heir to a $20 million estate. In memory of her late husband, Sarah established the Winchester Fund for treatment of tuberculosis at New Haven Hospital and donated $1.8 million during her lifetime. In 1892, Sarah moved to San Jose, Calif., purchased an eight room house on 150 acres and began to add on to it. By the time of her death in 1922, Sarah's Victorian house contained 160 rooms and was surrounded by six acres of gardens. Filled with unexplained features' it has come to be called the Winchester Mystery House.
According to the myth that has grown up around Sarah, she was convinced by a Boston medium that building would appease or confuse the evil spirits of those killed by the "Gun that Won the West". However, her attorney credited the house's size to Sarah's desire to accommodate visiting relatives. Sarah is buried far from the mystery house in Hew Haven's Evergreen Cemetery...next to her husband and daughter.
THE STORY BEHIND THE WINCHESTER MANSION:
The Winchester Mystery House is a 160 room, $5,500,000 Victorian mansion that was owned, designed and built under the direct supervision of Sarah L. Winchester (Mrs. William Wirt Winchester). She was the daughter of Leonard and Sarah Burns Pardee of New Haven, Connecticut. The history begins at the height of the Civil War when Sarah Pardee met and married William Wirt Winchester, the son of the manufacturer of the famous Winchester Repeating Rifle. They had one child, Annie Pardee, who died of marasmas (Tuberculosis) about a month after birth. Then, about 15 years later, her husband died of pulmonary tuberculosis March 7, 1881).
Mrs. Winchester was deeply upset by the deaths of her husband and daughter and seems to have consulted a spiritualistic medium. Reportedly, the medium explained that the spirits of all those who had been killed by the rifles her family had manufactured, had sought their revenge by taking the lives of her loved ones. Further, these spirits had placed a curse on her and would haunt her forever. But the medium also stated that she could escape the curse by moving west, buying a house, and continuously building on it as the spirits directed. In this way, she could escape them and perhaps find the key to eternal life.
Whether Mrs. Winchester believed the medium or not is unclear. But she did move to what is now San Jose, California in 1884 and purchased an eight (8) room farmhouse from a Dr. Caldwell. She immediately began her never-ceasing building project. With a great deal of money and very few responsibilities, she satisfied her every whim and arrant notion by keeping a staff of 18-20 domestic servants, 10-22 carpenters and 12-18 gardeners and field hands constantly busy. She had no master plan for a house and according to her carpenters, built whenever, wherever, and how so-ever she pleased. As a result of the constant building, tearing down and remodeling her mansion spread like a cancer, engulfing several outlaying structures over the southeast section of her 161.919 acre estate. She built steadily - 24 hours a day for 38 years - until her death in 1922.
During the 38 years Mrs. Winchester worked on her mansion, local people would pass by the estate and would wonder at the goings on. Many would try to explain it to others, From one telling to the next, many strange stories would arise. Frequently, these stories would be recounted to Mrs. Winchester and, according to her niece, Mrs. Marian Marriott, would upset her very greatly. Many of these stories have been retold so many times, they have become part of the legend of the House.In reality, Mrs. Winchester was a very sane, although eccentric, person. If she had actually believed that she would have eternal life if she kept building, why did she leave a will? Those who worked for her usually stayed for 15 or 20 years. One carpenter stayed and worked for 36 years.
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