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EXPLORING THE HOUSE THAT FEAR BUILT

by Antoinette May

Every night is Halloween at Sarah Winchester's house in San Jose.

An aura of mystery and dark foreboding surrounds the awesome structure.

Towering spires, minarets and cupolas stand dark and still, silhouetted against the sky. Inside are trap doors, secret passageways and doors that open into the air. The Gothic Victorian is a living monument to the dead.

The legend of Sarah Winchester, who tried to shut out the grim realities of life and death with a carpenter's hammer, is everywhere.

The story of Sarah Winchester--surely the most enigmatic woman in the history of the West--is as fascinating as the legend of the house itself. To 19th century pioneers, the Winchester repeating rifle was "the gun that won the West," but to Sarah, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, the weapon was an instrument of doom and ultimate destruction for herself.

According to the story, the widow of the rifle manufacturer's only son was told by a Boston medium that the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles had placed a curse on her. The medium advised Sarah that she might escape by moving west and building a house. As long as construction continued, the vengeful spirits would be thwarted and Sarah would live.

The unhappy heiress obediently took her "blood money," as she called it, and moved to San Jose, Calif., where she purchased an eight-room farmhouse--which she proceeded to remodel literally as the spirits moved her. The construction project, begun in 1884, was to occupy the next 38 years of her life and would ultimately employ hundreds of artisans working on a round-the-clock-basis that included Sundays and holidays.

Design conferences took place in the seance room where Sarah retired each night. Her spectral consultants were capricious and insatiable, demanding room after room, balcony after balcony, chimney after chimney, tower after tower. The strange growth spread until it reached a distant barn, flowed around it like a tumor and finally engulfed it. An observation tower shot up, only to be choked by later construction until nothing could be seen from it.

To the original eight rooms, hundreds were added--many of them quickly ripped out to make way for the new ideas from Mrs. Winchester's nocturnal advisors. Today l60 rooms of this baffling labyrinth still stand, the survivors of an estimated 750 chambers interconnected--if you can use that term--by trick doors, self-intersecting balconies, and dead-end stairways.

Literally miles of winding, twisting, bewildering corridors snake their way through the house, while numerous secret passageways are concealed in the walls. Some end in closets, others in blank walls. The floor from one was the rear wall of a walk-in icebox. The walls vary in width from 2 feet to regulation size, and some ceilings are so low that an average size person must to stoop to avoid bumping his or her head.

The explanation for all this is that the house was designed by ghosts for ghosts. If ghost stories are to be believed, spirits dearly love to vanish up chimneys. So Sarah obligingly provided them with not one but 47 of these escape hatches.

In l903, Theodore Roosevelt--then president--passed through San Jose and called at the Winchester Mansion. He was turned away with the message that "the house was not open to strangers." According to servants' tales, the only guests that Sarah entertained were spectral ones. Each night at 12, a bell summoned them. Another bell tolling at 2 heralded their exit.

During these two hours the strains of organ music could be heard by passersby. There are several organs in the house, for Sarah was once a fine musician, but as the years passed arthritis severely crippled her hands, It was said that the affliction was so intense that she could scarcely hold the pencil with which to make the building plans she was constantly creating and changing.

If so, then who was the phantom organist?

Dining in splendor with her secretary-companion, Sarah enjoyed the best vintage wines. One evening she went to the wine cellar--to which only she possessed the key--to locate a very special bottle. To her horror, she discovered a black hand print on the wall. That night the spirits confided that it was the print of a demon's hand. Sarah took this as a warning against alcohol and had the cellar walled up so carefully that, to this day the liquid treasure has yet to be found.

Despite her efforts, death came to Sarah Winchester on Sept. 5, l922. Word came to the workman pounding away that that the 85-year-old recluse had quietly died in her sleep.

The seance room where Sarah received her instructions had been off limits to other humans. Those entering the forbidden sanctuary after her death found a small blue room furnished with only a cabinet.

Of her $23 million inheritance, the widow spent at least 4.5 million pre-inflation dollars to please her discarnate friends. Unless ghosts are unspeakable ingrates, Mrs.. Winchester should have been well received on the other side.

But was that the end of the story? Hardly, to judge from the weird tales that surround the house. Over the years a variety of strange phenomena have been reported--chains rattling, organ music, cold spots, whispers, footsteps--a Gothic thriller seemingly come to life.

A bulging dossier of signed statements from visitors and staff alike prompted the owners of the mystery mansion to schedule a seance. Nationally recognized psychic Sylvia Browne, was asked to make contact with Sarah Winchester. As TV lights gleamed and cameras whirled, Sylvia went into a deep trance. The message was clear "Who are these people? What are they doing in my house?"

Not too surprising a reaction. The Winchester Mystery House, a California Historical Landmark since Friday, May l3, l974, draws hundreds of visitors in a single days. Maintenance of so large a structure never stops. The carpenters' hammer echoes just as it did during Sarah's heyday.

So it would seem that--like it or not--Sarah Winchester does, indeed, live on as her house does, achieving her own kind of immortality.

Antoinette May, a Palo Alto, CA., based biographer and travel writer, is the author of Haunted Houses of California.

How To Get There Winchester Mystery House, 525 S. Winchester Blvd., San Jose, is reached by turning south off Highway 280 at Winchester Blvd.

Making Plans Phone (408) 247-2101 for tour information. The house is open every day but Christmas, with the first tour beginning at 9 a.m. and the last at 4 p.m. Admissions fees are $12.50 for adults, $6.50 for children ages 6-12, and $9.50 for seniors 65 and older.

Halloween Festivities A special flashlight tour will be offered Oct. 27-31 from 7 p.m.to midnight. Cost is $18 for everyone and will include a free flashlight. Grounds are lighted, magicians and musicians will perform.

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