Paranoia Result

Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester (WWW!) was a rather eccentric woman. When her husband died, she became convinced that the house was haunted by all the people being killed by a Winchester rifle. Probably not a minor number. But she decided not to give up without a proper fight, and the process of building construction began. It lasted for 38 years, non stop. Around the clock, until the day she died. The reason for all the work was to build a maze of corridors, rooms and stairs, so that the ghosts would get lost and/or not find her. There are many examples of stairs ending in walls/open air, doors leading to nothing, rooms without windows, etc. The mansion was/is well known for its size and lack of master plan. Mrs. Winchester was a wealthy madam, so the effect of construction work on her wallet is not worth mentioning. In the end there were about 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms, one completed and one under construction. The house also had 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys and three elevators. Painting the house was a work-to-eternity-machine, finally finished with all the sections, they had to repaint again. Today the house is a museum. 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California.