- [Narrator] Spooky horror stories about haunted buildings
can be found all over the world,
but one of the strangest and maybe most haunted places
in the United States is the eerie Winchester Mystery House.
But why, what makes this one house so creepy?
And why are there so many reports that it's haunted?
Let's find out in today's episode of
(creepy whooshing) (creepy tense music)
"Colossal Mysteries." (creepy creaking)
Way back in 1884, when Sarah Winchester began
building her dream home in San Jose, California,
there were no blueprints, no drawings,
no plans at all.
She began building a truly puzzling mansion,
complete with stairways going nowhere,
with different size steps, doors that led to 15-foot drops,
stained glass windows inside.
Out of the 13 bathrooms, only one worked,
which the rumor was to keep the ghosts
from haunting the pipes.
Maze-like hallways that led to dead ends,
and all sorts of secret chambers.
Mrs. Winchester continued to add
to her bizarre sprawling mansion for 36 years,
right up until her death
in 1922. (Sarah groaning)
But why? (hammering)
What brought her to build such a mysterious mansion?
Could some of the more paranormal rumors be true?
Is there a chance that the Winchester Mystery House
really is haunted?
In order to answer that,
we need to start at the very beginning.
Sarah grew up wealthy, well-educated,
and eventually married a man named William Winchester,
heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
The couple gave birth to a daughter four years later,
but tragedy struck, and the baby died just over a month
after she was born. (rain and thunder crashing)
The distraught couple decided never to have another child.
Just 15 years later, her husband William
died of tuberculosis, leaving the widow Sarah Winchester
as the sole heir to the Winchester fortune.
According to the legends, it was around this time
that poor Mrs. Winchester sought out a medium
to get advice from her late husband
about what to do with her new life and fortune.
The story goes that William's ghost spoke to Sarah,
and told her to leave New Haven, Connecticut for California.
The ghost also told her how to use her inheritance:
Build a home for ghostly spirits to rest,
or be haunted by them for the rest of your life.
So Sarah moved west to San Jose
and purchased a small farmhouse
that would become the infamous Winchester Mystery House.
Almost from the day she signed the deed,
Mrs. Winchester went to work
hiring carpenters and day laborers to work day and night
on her new seven-story home.
At the house's height, it was more than seven stories tall,
had more than 150 rooms, 47 fireplaces,
17 chimneys, three elevators, and a truly bizarre layout
unlike any building on Earth,
but an earthquake in 1906 shook San Jose
and severely damaged the top three floors.
They were later removed, leaving just four floors behind.
So that's how the Winchester Mystery House was built,
but is there any truth as to why?
Did Mrs. Winchester really commune with ghostly spirits
and build her haunted house to appease them?
Throughout her life, Sarah never said
why she was building her house.
She kept no diary, left no letters,
and gave no interviews when she was alive.
So almost from the start, local rumors swirled
that she was building a haunted house.
Gossip spread about Sarah,
people said she performed seances every night
to help guide her haunted construction,
that she slept in a new room every evening
and that she only used secret passages
to move around the house, attempting to stay
one step ahead of the spirits.
It wasn't until Sarah Winchester passed away in 1922
that the truth of her colossal construction became clear.
In her will, Sarah left all her belongings to her niece.
All, except one.
The one possession Mrs. Winchester
had relentlessly devoted her life to:
The mysterious house. (rain and thunder crashing)
Her niece stripped the house of all its valuables
and auctioned them off, leaving the now worthless,
dilapidated house behind.
So the state decided to auction off the worthless mansion
to the highest bidder.
Just a few months after Sarah Winchester's death,
the house was sold to investors who repaired sections of it
and eventually opened it up to the public for tours.
So was Sarah Winchester really building her mystery house
to try and ward off her evil spirits?
Or, was she simply a hermit (maniacal female laughter)
with more money than she knew what to do with?
The truth is, we'll likely never know for sure.
Paranormal experts have surveyed the house
and come up empty-handed.
Yet visitors to this day still insist
they feel spirits throughout the property.
So, we may never know what spirits, if any,
live within the Winchester Mystery House.
But if it really is a house built
for spirits of the restless dead,
one can only assume that Sarah Winchester's ghost
is living there today. (ghostly whispering)
(bright tones) (logo springing and popping)