floor plans for winchester mystery house

She left New Haven, Connecticut and settled in San Jose, where she bought a modest property. The medium then advised her to move west and to appease the spirits build a great house for them, and never stop building. The medium told her that the Winchester family was being haunted by the ghosts of all those who had felled to rifles manufactured by her husband’s company, and that the untimely deaths of her daughter and her husband was a result of this. Fifteen years earlier Sarah had lost her infant daughter, a tragedy from which she had hardly recovered when she lost her husband.Ĭrippled by grief, Sarah approached -as the story goes- a psychic medium for advice. This was an enormous sum for that time, but the wealth was no consolation to her losses. The story of the house begins with the death of William Wirt Winchester in 1881, that left Sarah in possession of an incredible fortune -over $20 million and nearly 50% stake in the Winchester company giving her an income of $1,000 a day. This seven-story mansion, containing over 160 rooms, is full of architectural curiosities and surprises -stairs that lead to ceilings or solid walls doors that opened to steep drops windows that open to other rooms skylights placed in between floors blind chimney that stops short of the ceiling and dozens of other oddities that resulted out of an inexplicable obsession that drove its former owner to keep building the house continuously for 38 years. The house, originally belonging to Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, is perhaps one of the strangest homes ever built. Please contact us with any questions.Standing in the middle of suburban San Jose, California, is a sprawling Victorian mansion surrounded by beautifully kept gardens, which from the outside appears nothing out of the ordinary. Browse our Victorian house plans below to find the perfect home for you.

Many modern Victorian house floor plans contain updated features such as exercise rooms and home theaters while retaining that old-world charm. Many people seek these types of homes in good condition for restoration because of their timeless appeal, and many of these homes can be found on the historical register.

The architectural style remains popular and can nearly always be found in the older neighborhoods of America. Today, Victorian style house plans are still being built throughout the United States. This house style is sometimes viewed by critics as cluttered or overpowered with trimwork and ornamentation however, these attributes made Victorian home plans so popular during the 1800s. Designers began implementing characteristics of several styles to create what is most commonly known as Victorian. Victorian style house plans combine several other main styles such as Italianate, Second Empire, and Queen Anne.

The Victorian style was developed and became quite popular from about 1820 to the early 1900s, and it is still a coveted architectural style today. The exterior typically features stone, wood, or vinyl siding, large porches with turned posts, and decorative wood railing, corbels, and decorative gable trim. Victorian house plans are chosen for their elegant designs that most commonly include two stories with steep roof pitches, turrets, and dormer windows.

Floor plans for winchester mystery house