Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House is a unique mansion located at 525 Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, California. Its construction began in 1884, and was financed and built by Sarah L. Winchester, the heiress of the man who invented and manufactured the Winchester rifle. Construction continued 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, until her death 38 years later in 1922. This has been estimated to have cost about 5.5 million dollars.

Depictions in popular culture

Issue #45 of Alan Moore's run on the classic Vertigo series Swamp Thing, titled Ghost Dance, featured a haunted house clearly intended to be the Winchester House, though the names were changed, presumably to avoid legal action. "Amy Cambridge", whose family invented the "Cambridge repeater" (called a "second-rate copy of the Winchester" in the comic) built a gigantic mansion at the behest of spirits, who told her that "the sound of the hammers must never stop"—a reference both to builders' hammers and to the hammer mechanism on a gun. In the issue, four people explore the house, since condemned, and discover it is haunted by the spirits of those killed by Cambridge guns, people and animals both. The house is described as covering six acres, having 160 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 13 fireplaces, and 47 chimneys.

Related Topics:
Alan Moore's - Vertigo - Swamp Thing

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Stephen King's "Rose Red" story was inspired by the Winchester Mystery House.

Related Topics:
Stephen King - Rose Red

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