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Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House once belonged to Sarah Winchester, the wife of gun tycoon William Winchester. The grand mansion is renowned for its apparent lack of a floor plan and is believed to be haunted by thousands of spirits of people who were killed by Winchester brand guns.

According to legend, Sarah Winchester consulted a psychic after her husband and baby daughter died unexpectedly. The psychic told her that the house was haunted, and that she must continually add extensions to the house, or else the spirits that killed her family would come after her too. Winchester had the house under construction for 38 years, from 1884 until she died in 1922. The house has many “mystery doors” and staircases that lead to nowhere, dead ends, and twists and turns that Winchester believed would confuse the spirits so much that they would never find her.

Today, the house is a tourist attraction, and offers daily tours of the house and gardens, and contains a Winchester Rifle Museum as well as the Winchester Antique Products Museum, which displays antique items made by the Winchester company. Brave visitors can take a flashlight tour in the dark, every Friday the 13th and on Halloween.