Winchester Mystery House · The House That Was Never Finished

Sarah Winchester was the widow of a rifle manufacturer. According to the story, a medium told her that the family's deaths came from the rifles, and that she would be safe only as long as the house was never finished.

From 1884 until her death she kept carpenters working day and night. The result runs to about 160 rooms: doors that open onto walls, staircases that climb into the ceiling, a short flight of steps that goes nowhere, rooms built for no purpose at all. She slept in a small room and changed rooms often.

It is open as a museum. The guides point out the doors that lead nowhere and say that it was not a ghost who designed them. It was a woman who was afraid for thirty-eight years.

Bureau note: construction never stopped until she died.

Haunted Ruins / San Jose · USA / 1884