SARAH WINCHESTER & the 2,000 DOORS

By Mary Davis

Her mind was as mystifying as the chaotic house she built. Each labyrinth of halls, more baffling than the previous.

Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1839. On September 30, 1862, Sarah married William Wirt Winchester the only son and heir of Oliver Winchester owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.

William and Sarah had a daughter, Annie Pardee Winchester, born on July 12, 1866 who passed away only five and a half months later from marasmus. They had no other children. Upon her husband’s death in 1881, Sarah inherited $20 million dollars and nearly 50% of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company stock.

Grieving from the loss of her daughter and husband, Sarah visited a medium who recommended she move west and told her she needed to keep building to appease the spirits of the numerous people the Winchester rifle killed over the years. Sarah moved and bought a two-story, eight-room farmhouse in 1884 near San Jose, CA and began “remodeling”. She called her home Llanada Villa.

One of Sarah's Many Bedrooms

Construction continued around the clock seven days a week adding on and adding on and adding on. You could say that this was a renovation that got out of control.

Upon her death on September 5, 1922, the hammers and saws were laid down and the remodeling finally stopped.

By then, the normal farmhouse had grown into a sprawling mansion of confusion without rhyme or reason. In the end, the residence measured 24,000 square feet.

In that space, the eight rooms had multiplied into 160. There were:

~~47 staircase (some leading to dead ends)

~~47 fireplaces

~~17 chimneys

~~52 skylights (one of which is in the floor of a middle story)

~~13 bathrooms

~~9 kitchens

~~10,000 windows

~~2,000 doors (Watch your step. This second floor door goes nowhere.)

Maybe this door that leads nowhere was to confuse the ghosts. Perhaps, if one was to open this door from the inside, it would lead to Narnia.

Other doors opened up to a wall.

With all these additions, a network of rambling rooftops developed.

Sarah’s Llanada Villa became known as the Winchester Mystery House even before her death.

I haven’t had a chance to visit the Winchester Mystery House, but I really want to. It sounds so intriguing.

On the night of October 31, 1924, the famous magician Harry Houdini visited the house to debunk the claims of paranormal activity. By the time he left, he had more questions than answers and referred to it as “The Mystery House.”

In 2018, a movie was made of Sarah Winchester and her mystery house called Winchester, starring Helen Mirren.

The websites used in my research hinted at Sarah’s obsession for the constant building of this bizarre house was to appease the ghosts of the multitude of people who were killed by the Winchester Repeating Rifle. She believed those people haunted her hence the reason for the constant construction and so many doors. She had many of the doors nailed shut with thirteen nails each. Whether you believe in actual physical hauntings or you think it was all in her head, Sarah was a haunted soul.

Was she simply crazy? Or was she haunted by restless souls?

THE DAUGHTER'S PREDICAMENT (Book 2 in the Quilting Circle series )

Can a patient love win her heart?
   As Isabelle Atwood’s romance prospects are turning in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams. While making a quilt for her own hope chest, Isabelle’s half-sister becomes pregnant out of wedlock and Isabelle--always the unfavored daughter--becomes the family sacrifice to save face. Despite gaining the attention of a handsome rancher, her parents are pressuring her to marry a man of their choosing to rescue her sister’s reputation. A third suitor waits silently in the wings, hoping for his own chance at love. Isabelle ends up with three marriage proposals, but this only further confuses her decision.
   A handsome rancher, a stranger, and an unseen suitor are all waiting for an answer. Isabelle loves her sister, but will she really allow herself to be manipulated into a marriage without love? Will Isabelle capitulate and marry the man her parents wish her to, or will she rebel and marry the man they don’t approve of? Or will the man leaving her secret love poems sweep her off her feet?

MARY DAVIS is a bestselling, award-winning novelist of over three dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her recent titles include; "Holly and Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection, The PRODIGAL DAUGHTERS Series, The Widow’s Plight, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection, The Daughter's Predicament, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She’s an ACFW member and critique groups. Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-four years and two cats. She has three adult children and two adorable grandchildren. Find her online:

Newsletter Blog FB FB Readers Group Amazon GoodReads BookBub

The Torment of Sarah Winchester

Winchester House, CA

Leave a comment for a chance to win The Gilded Curse.

By Marilyn Turk

When Sarah Pardee married William Winchester in 1862, she enjoyed a life of extravagant luxury. Winchester, manufacturer of the Winchester repeating rifle, became a very wealthy man through the sale of his guns, and the couple were among the elite New England society.

But in 1866, the death of their infant daughter threw Sarah into a depression from which she never emerged.  Several years later, she lost her husband to tuberculosis, and her grief was overwhelming. Sarah sought the counsel of a Boston medium to reach her beloved dead family members.

Sarah Winchester

The medium told Sarah that spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle – Civil War soldiers, American   Indians and others – had sought revenge by the death of her husband and daughter. She also told Sarah they would kill her too, unless she moved out West and built a great house for the spirits. In addition, Sarah was told construction on the house must never end in order to appease the spirits and keep her alive, perhaps even give her eternal life.

Sarah followed the medium’s suggestions, and in 1884, she moved to the Santa Clara valley just outside San Jose, where she bought a farmhouse and property to build her mansion. Contractors were hired to work in round-the-clock shifts so the work never stopped. What began as an eight room  house became a seven story mansion over the next thirty-eight years, and her property grew to 160 acres of orchards and  imported plants.

Main Ballroom

One of the wealthiest women in the country after inheriting twenty million dollars and stock, money was no object as she built her house. The finest materials were imported for the home, some which were never used by the time of her death. Sarah paid her workmen double the going wage for that era, so they didn’t argue with her eccentric plans.

One of the master bedrooms

Sarah never had a blueprint drawn, rather she held a séance in a special room each night to sketch the next plans for the house. Built to please the good spirits and hide from the evil ones, staircases went nowhere, or went down then up, hidden passageways were installed, and doors led to nothing.

Often her plans involved tearing apart rooms that had just been finished to rebuild them another way, which also explained the stairs and doors that led nowhere.

Stairway to nowhere

Secret doorway

At first, Sarah entertained neighborhood children on her lawn, but eventually her arthritis forced her to become more reclusive.

After the 1906 earthquake which resulted in her being trapped in a front bedroom, she decided the spirits were angry with her and had the front of the house, including a grand ballroom that was never used, sealed up.  She supposedly slept in a different bedroom each night, using various passageways to get around the house and confuse the spirits.

Winchester House, aerial view

When she died in 1922, the house had 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 stairways, 57 fireplaces, 13 (a number she used frequently in the house) bathrooms, and 6 kitchens. It is estimated that some 500-600 rooms were actually built over the course of time, although “only” 160 remained.

When I visited the “mystery” mansion, tourists were warned to stay with their guides because one can still get lost among the erratic maze of the house’s layout.

There are many more odd and interesting details about the house, but I’ve run out of space.  For more information, see www.winchestermysteryhouse.com.

So, do you think Sarah Winchester ever had peace from the spirits that haunted her?  She’s one more of the sad examples that shows money can’t buy happiness.

Marilyn Turk has been published in Guideposts magazine, Guideposts books - A Joyful Heart and A Cup of Christmas Cheer, The Upper Room, Clubhouse Jr. Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Lighthouse Digest magazine. Her book, Lighthouse Devotions was published in 2015, and The Gilded Curse, a historical suspense novel, was released this month. Her weekly lighthouse blog can be found at http://pathwayheart.com. She lives in Florida with husband Chuck and enjoys boating, fishing, tennis, and gardening when she’s not climbing lighthouses or playing with her grandsons. 

It's 1942, and Lexie Smithfield, heir to her family’s fortune, journeys to Jekyll Island to dispose of the family vacation home her deceased mother told her was cursed.  But mysterious events threaten her safety, and only Russell Thompson, a childhood friend, can help her discover the truth before she is caught in a trap that threatens her very life.