Winchester Mystery House

About this activity

Beautiful but bizarre! That is how the Winchester Mystery House has been described, and they are pretty right! the Winchester Mystery House is a weird and wonderful experience for the whole family in San Jose - and might leave you feeling a little confused!

Sarah Winchester was born in 1840, and suffered some traumatic losses in her life. So she did what she felt would help her - spend some of her $20,000,000 to build a very strange house!

Your family can take tours around the Winchester Mystery House - but stay close because you might be lost for hours if you stray from the tour group! Have you ever seen a staircase which has seven steps descending, then eleven rising?

Have you ever seen miles of twisting hallways and secret passageways through the halls? Rumor has it that Mrs. Winchester built some strange traps to warn off the ghosts that resided in the house. She even built a Seance Room to discourage the spirit of an Indian chief! 

The house was built without any blueprints, and if she dreamt something new and strange, they would add it to the plans! Mrs Winchester was concerned with evil spirits, so you might find some weird constructions - such as upside-down columns, and stairs that go round and round in circles to confuse them! 

Legend has it that around 600 rooms were built, but with so many changes, around 160 rooms remain to this day. Finding doors that go nowhere and chimneys that fall short of the roof are just some of the oddities that you will encounter!

The Winchester Mystery House also has some amazing gardens that you can explore - some of them have 100 year old plants! Don't forget to check out the Winchester Historic Firearms Museum which has one of the largest collections of rifles in the entire west coast!

A fun and fascinating experience for a family day out with a difference!