![]() ![]() ![]() It has gold and silver chandeliers, hand-inlaid parquet floors and trim, and a vast array of colors and materials. Winchester's property was about 162 acres (66 ha) at one time, but the estate has since been reduced to 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) – the minimum necessary to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. There are roughly 161 rooms, including 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms (one completed and one unfinished) as well as 47 fireplaces, over 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. This type of construction allows the home to shift freely, as it is not completely attached to its brick base. The home itself is built using a floating foundation that is believed to have saved it from total collapse in the 1906 earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Approximately 20,500 US gallons (78,000 l) of paint were required to paint the house. This is why almost all the wood in the home is covered. She therefore demanded that a faux grain and stain be applied. Winchester preferred the wood however, she disliked the look of it. The house is predominantly made of redwood, as Mrs. Many accounts attribute these oddities to her belief in ghosts.īefore the 1906 earthquake, the house had been seven stories high, but today it is only four stories. She did not use an architect and added on to the building in a haphazard fashion, so the home contains numerous oddities such as doors and stairs that go nowhere, windows overlooking other rooms and stairs with odd-sized risers. ![]() Carpenters were hired and worked on the house day and night until it became a seven story mansion. In 1884 she purchased an unfinished farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley and began building her mansion. Though it is possible she was simply seeking a change of location and a hobby during her lengthy depression, other sources claim that Winchester came to believe her family and fortune were haunted by ghosts, and that only by moving West and continuously building them a house could she appease these spirits. Winchester left New Haven and headed for California. Tabloids from the time claimed that at some point after her infant daughter and husband both died a Boston medium told her, while supposedly channeling her late husband, that she should leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles. These inheritances gave her a tremendous amount of wealth which she used to fund the ongoing construction. She also received nearly fifty percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, giving her an income of roughly $1,000 per day, equivalent to about $23,000 a day in 2013. After her husband's death from tuberculosis in 1881, Sarah Winchester inherited more than $20.5 million. ![]()
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