Michael and Kaylyn's Adventures

16 March 2004

Pretties

Mrs. Winchester may have been crazy, but she did have a penchant for beeyootiful windows! There are six spider web windows in this area. Many more windows are in a storage area (alongside rolls and rolls of wallpaper) where they awaited Mrs. Winchester's order to install them. One of the windows in the collection is a Tiffany that she personally designed. It has thirteen circular panes within it, of course, for she loved that number. There are also exactly thirteen holes in her washroom sink drain. And each Friday the Thirteenth in the year the staff conducts a flashlight tour of the house.

That's Odd

Mrs. Winchester did not have an architectural degree. In fact, she professed to be compelled to build by the spirits of people killed by the guns her husband's company manufactured. Even if she was just crazy, the outcome of the house is a marvel. Because of her building practices, the house is rather peculiar. She had at least one stairway taken out and replaced with steps so tiny they required seven switchbacks to reach the floor above. Another stairway is unuseable because it dead-ends into the ceiling. Let’s see...a fireplace that was never connected to anything and was bricked in immediately after installation; a door to the patio (but watch that first step!), and a door in the floor. Maybe Mrs. Winchester was friends with Dr. Seuss...

A Roofer's Dream

In March we went to California. While Michael attended the SD West Conference, Kaylyn went exploring the Santa Clara & San Jose area. The Winchester Mansion in Santa Clara, California is a fantabulous structure. The wife to the son of Oliver Winchester (who manufactured the Repeating Rifle) moved to Santa Clara following the death of her child and husband. Probably due to the mental strain of bereavement, this 4’10” millionaire heiress spent thirty-eight years adding onto a farm house. Her workmen were required to build without ceasing, working 24/7 for the remainder of her life. In one wing of the house you can see where they were ordered to stop building because of the 1916 earthquake. In all other areas that are unfinished, this is due to her death, when the building finally ceased. There is an aviary which had housed tropical birds, and a greenhouse containing plants from over 100 countries. Mrs. Winchester definitely went in for extravagant expenditures, but she did have a practical side: her estate was a self-sustaining farm that produced fruit (dried on site) and walnuts that were sold at market with her very own label. The gas for the light fixtures was produced on site. Then, after electricity was brought in, she installed one of the first Otis elevators. The literature says you visit 110 of 160 rooms here, but it seems like many more. All of her furniture was removed by a niece who inherited it. They say it took six trucks several weeks to remove it all. (The few rooms that are furnished today are filled with furniture from the time period, but none of it is original.)