![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Ghost architects
In the deepest California, in the darkest San Jose, you will find the house that ghosts built, better as the Winchester Mystery House.
The story goes that Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, consulted a psychic following the loss of both her husband and daughter. The psychic informed her that her loved ones had been slain by the vengeful ghosts of those killed by the infamous rifles, and that she would suffer the same fate unless she started building a house and kept on building, never letting it reach completion. So of course that's what she did.
She was guided in this enterprise by whatever restless spirits she could contact in nightly midnight seances. (I'm not sure why you would select the same bloodthirsty supernatural rabble that slaughtered your loved ones as your architects of choice, but maybe that was part of the deal. Or maybe the spirits advising her were the ~good~ ghosts. Who knows?)
The result was a rambling shambling monster of a house, a genuine oddity in its own right and now a massive tourist attraction. Even the shortest guided tour is an epic trek through the myriad halls and attics, as a guide fills you in on the macabre history and speculates how Sarah Winchester's odd motivations and state of mind may have shaped the strangest architectural oddities.
In fact, the 'weird' aspects of the house were the least intriguing. There are so many houses around that have been so warped by time and repurposing that something like a stairway leading straight into a wall, floors crossing each other at strange levels, and windows that never see daylight don't exactly demand a supernatural explanation. (I lived for six months in a house with a door to nowhere, and we never once had crowds of tourists flocking round to gawp at it.) The contradictions were striking though: lushly furnished apartments sat alongside bare lathe and plaster walls, where construction work was abandoned after being interrupted by the great 'quake of 1906 (which was itself, of course, caused by the vengeful spirits.)
And while most of the time it was hard to get a sense of scale of the place, the few times you did get a glimpse out across the whole sprawling construction (or even a segment of it) the scale was mind boggling. Plus there was plenty of fun spotting the repeated themes (spiderwebs and the number thirteen were particularly popular) as well as some gorgeous stained glass, and elegant furniture and fittings. (And that kind of stuff often bores me, so I'm sure the creepy context added to the experience.)
The really interesting aspect, though, was the human tale behind the haunted mansion. Sarah Winchester was by many accounts a paranoid(!) woman, and quick to anger. She had whole blocks of rooms constructed so that she could more easily spy on her household staff (to see if they gossiped behind her back) as well as a complex bell-call network that meant that they were at her beck and call every hour of the day and night. She was also obsessive about conserving water and set up elaborate recycling and reclaimation systems all over the house.
And the weirdest part of all was realising that those grand reception halls and ornate ballrooms never once saw the throngs of visitors they were designed for. Sarah Winchester remained a total recluse, hidden away from the world. She even had a special chamber constructed so she could get out of her carriage inside the house, away from spying eyes. She lived out her days as a lonely, fearful phantom, haunting her ever-expanding, never ending palace.
[previous] [next]
In the deepest California, in the darkest San Jose, you will find the house that ghosts built, better as the Winchester Mystery House.
The story goes that Sarah Winchester, heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, consulted a psychic following the loss of both her husband and daughter. The psychic informed her that her loved ones had been slain by the vengeful ghosts of those killed by the infamous rifles, and that she would suffer the same fate unless she started building a house and kept on building, never letting it reach completion. So of course that's what she did.
She was guided in this enterprise by whatever restless spirits she could contact in nightly midnight seances. (I'm not sure why you would select the same bloodthirsty supernatural rabble that slaughtered your loved ones as your architects of choice, but maybe that was part of the deal. Or maybe the spirits advising her were the ~good~ ghosts. Who knows?)
The result was a rambling shambling monster of a house, a genuine oddity in its own right and now a massive tourist attraction. Even the shortest guided tour is an epic trek through the myriad halls and attics, as a guide fills you in on the macabre history and speculates how Sarah Winchester's odd motivations and state of mind may have shaped the strangest architectural oddities.
In fact, the 'weird' aspects of the house were the least intriguing. There are so many houses around that have been so warped by time and repurposing that something like a stairway leading straight into a wall, floors crossing each other at strange levels, and windows that never see daylight don't exactly demand a supernatural explanation. (I lived for six months in a house with a door to nowhere, and we never once had crowds of tourists flocking round to gawp at it.) The contradictions were striking though: lushly furnished apartments sat alongside bare lathe and plaster walls, where construction work was abandoned after being interrupted by the great 'quake of 1906 (which was itself, of course, caused by the vengeful spirits.)
And while most of the time it was hard to get a sense of scale of the place, the few times you did get a glimpse out across the whole sprawling construction (or even a segment of it) the scale was mind boggling. Plus there was plenty of fun spotting the repeated themes (spiderwebs and the number thirteen were particularly popular) as well as some gorgeous stained glass, and elegant furniture and fittings. (And that kind of stuff often bores me, so I'm sure the creepy context added to the experience.)
The really interesting aspect, though, was the human tale behind the haunted mansion. Sarah Winchester was by many accounts a paranoid(!) woman, and quick to anger. She had whole blocks of rooms constructed so that she could more easily spy on her household staff (to see if they gossiped behind her back) as well as a complex bell-call network that meant that they were at her beck and call every hour of the day and night. She was also obsessive about conserving water and set up elaborate recycling and reclaimation systems all over the house.
And the weirdest part of all was realising that those grand reception halls and ornate ballrooms never once saw the throngs of visitors they were designed for. Sarah Winchester remained a total recluse, hidden away from the world. She even had a special chamber constructed so she could get out of her carriage inside the house, away from spying eyes. She lived out her days as a lonely, fearful phantom, haunting her ever-expanding, never ending palace.
[previous] [next]
Tags:
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject