Ep. 2: A Spiritual Prenup: The Winchester Mystery House

Speaker A: Hello. Hey, I'm Emma. I'm Shannon, and welcome to this podcast. Doesn't exist.
Speaker B: We're your best friends who, like, talking about weird and unsolvable stuff.
Speaker A: And it's lots of fun. Yes, I have a very spooky one for you today. Spooky? Spooky.
Speaker B: What are you going to tell us about it?
Speaker A: Today? We are talking about the Winchester Mystery House. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B: I just am very excited.
Speaker A: I've heard about this.
Speaker B: And I think they did an episode of Criminal Minds. It was, like, related to this. It might be inspired by it. It's one of those things that I know enough about it to be excited, but I don't know enough details to be like, and I already knew that. So I'm just excited.
Speaker A: Which I think is what both of us are sitting on when the other one tells a story. I know about this, but I don't know enough.
Speaker B: I know, but I don't actually could not tell you a single piece of information, but I claim that I know about it.
Speaker A: All right, so let me help you out. Just remind me with this info. So let's go into the history of it. So we have our proprietary she is Sarah Lockwood Pardi. She was born around 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut. We don't know what month, we don't know what day. We just know around 1839. Not much is known about her early life. Um, but we do know that on September 31, 862, Sarah married William Whart. Winchester, who was the only son of Oliver Winchester, the owner of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. So, like, the gun company.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Got you.
Speaker A: So they had one daughter in 1866, and her name was Annie Pardi Winchester. But she died six weeks later from Erasmus, which is an extreme inadequate energy intake leading to malnutrition that reduces the expected body weight well below half. And so when children have this, um, it's irreversible, and you basically can't get them back to full weight. Um, and Sarah and William never had any more kids. Sarah was really put out by this. She was grieving for the rest of her life because of this. So when Oliver Winchester died in 1880, William inherited the business, but then he died of tuberculosis in March of 1881, just a few months after his father the consumption. Yes. Um, and Sarah's own father died around the same time. So she has now lost, like, the three men in her life, as well as her daughter.
Speaker B: This feels like an inciting incident.
Speaker A: So the deaths of her husband, her father, and her father in law, uh, left Sarah Winchester with an inheritance of $20 million, which now money, and then money. So in now money, it's $503,000,000.
Speaker B: Wow.
Speaker A: She also had 50% ownership of the Winchester Company and a daily income of $1,000, which today is $26,000.
Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Speaker A: Imagine getting $26,000 just every morning just for waking up. You get $26,000.
Speaker B: Can I sign up for that? Kid, right?
Speaker A: I would take $1,000 a day just to be a lot just to roll over in bed and put your feet on the floor.
Speaker B: Wow. Her name is Sarah Winchester.
Speaker A: Sarah Winchester.
Speaker B: Is that the name of the mom from Supernatural?
Speaker A: Natural. I do not remember. The last time I watched Supernatural was, like, junior year of College. Okay, it was a very long time ago.
Speaker B: I want to say that was the boss.
Speaker A: We'll look into it. They are named about after the rifle.
Speaker B: So it does make sense when you explain the Winchester, as in the gun company. I went Ding. That makes sense.
Speaker A: There we go. Uh, the Winchester rifle itself was prominent weapon of both the frontier and within battles and wars of the day. Um, and it was known as the gun that won the west. So, basically, the gun that killed all the Native Americans and the Mexicans, um, and opened, uh, up the west to westward expansion. So because of this, the death toll caused by Winchester rifles is incalculable because it's not like they went around counting how many Native Americans they killed. They were just like, we got rid of them. Um, so after the passing of the men in her life and the lasting morning of her daughter, Sarah sought out the insights of mediums and psychics. So, uh, this is around the time of the psychic boom, too, of the late 1800s. So it's not unusual that she was into this, mhm. So she met with a renowned Boston psychic, Adam Coons, to try and find some solace and to seek some kind of answer as to why her family was all gone. Coons held a seance with her in the hopes of getting in touch with her loved ones. But instead, Coons revealed that there were other spirits trying to come through. Mhm. He said that Sarah's family, the Winchesters, were cursed. Cursed? Nothing's wrong with you.
Speaker B: I feel like maybe you should do that when you're doing the pre nap agreement. You should go to a medium and, um, be like, hey, so my future is lost.
Speaker A: Are they good? Are they cursed? I can't imagine having to sign a prenup in general. Okay, that was the point. I know. I'm sorry about the ghosts involved in a premise would be very specific. All right, so Coon said that the Winchester family was cursed by the souls of those killed by Winchester rifles who were vengeful and seeking her out, and that the only way to combat this curse was to move west and build a house and never stop, uh, building it. So Sarah was to start construction on this house, never stop building to keep the ghosts confused in it. Bay. So, basically, to trick them all into thinking she was in one room when really she was in another. Okay, yeah. Keep this in mind as we continue. Okay, so Sarah did exactly this. Her sister was already in California, and so she landed west in San Jose, California, 1884, and she purchased an unfinished eightroom farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley on 162 acres, which is just like an immense amount of land. Uh, and this is all farmland out here. Uh, and so she got to work. She named this home the Yanada Villa, or The House on flat land, just because it was flat and it was surrounded by a farming community. So its placement was a little out of the ordinary once it got big enough. A little like, uh, the crazy lady lives in the gigantic mansion. She's nice, but she's weird. And in 1888, the four years after she purchased the home, her niece Marion, her nickname is Daisy. I don't know where that came from. Maryman moved in to live with her aunt for the next 15 years until she got married. Um, so this niece is also living in this house that's constantly being constructed. Let's talk about this house between 1886 until 1922. That's like 38 years. Mhm. It's a long time. Construction, reconstruction, and renovation of the house never seemingly ceased, leading to a sprawling 240 square foot mansion that included. And we're getting into a nice long list of numbers. So just get ready. 10,000 windows, 2000 doors, about 160 rooms. But they don't know just exactly how many rooms there are, because every time they go to count, multiple people come up with different numbers. So the guess is around 160.
Speaker B: It's called the poster note, guys.
Speaker A: You just put it and you put one.
Speaker B: And then you go to you need people to have different colors posted. Yeah, right.
Speaker A: I don't know. Okay, 52 skylights, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, two ballrooms, one of which was finished, and the other was not like you do with your ballrooms.
Speaker B: You have so many friends when you're the crazy lady in town.
Speaker A: Right? 17 chimneys and evidence of two others. 13 bathrooms, three elevators, six kitchens, and two basements. Can I just state that.
Speaker B: You know, you're an adult when your first thought is not like, wow, that sounds crazy. Or like, that would be cool to explore. Your first thought is the amount of cleaning, because that's all I can think. The amount of Windex, the amount of Clorox wipes on all those windows. Are you kidding?
Speaker A: And think about cleaning out 47 fireplaces.
Speaker B: I mean, one would hope you're not burning them all at once.
Speaker A: Yeah, but if you turn on one, the assumption is that at some point, you're going to have to clean that.
Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
Speaker A: Maybe they do it in rotation.
Speaker B: Maybe.
Speaker A: I don't know. Sarah did not use an architect and had drawn up her own edition. Oh, so she's making all of these additions on her pieces of paper. It's also why there's no definitive master plan of the house, because it was just literally like she would talk to the Foreman in the morning and be like, this is what we're building.
Speaker B: Yeah. Imagine showing up as that general contractor.
Speaker A: Like, it's Monday.
Speaker B: What's going to be another ballroom agreement? We don't know.
Speaker A: No clue. She, um, was rumored to commune with spirits at exactly 02:00 A.m. In her seance room, which, uh, was in the dead middle of the house. Only one, apparently. Um, but these were the good spirits that were giving her advice on what to build next to, best confuse the bad spirits.
Speaker B: Got it.
Speaker A: Do you know how you know the difference between a good spirit and a bad spirit? Maybe after 38 years, you get really tuned in.
Speaker B: Maybe she didn't think maybe to get a second opinion other than that guy in Boston, like another medium, maybe.
Speaker A: I feel like when someone says you're cursed, you're like, oh, shit, I'm cursed.
Speaker B: I mean, I guess, but.
Speaker A: Okay, I don't know. There are stairs and doors that go to nowhere, windows overlooking other rooms, and stairs with odd risers. So one staircase goes up to a ceiling, which is actually explained because after an earthquake, the top, uh, two floors of the house were kind of rubble. And so she just built over that staircase, like, sealed it up. Okay, mhm. But it goes directly into the ceiling. You could have removed the staircase, but no, just board up. That's fine. One door has an eight foot drop into a kitchen sink, while another drops 15ft into the garden bushes below this.
Speaker B: Truly. I mean, now that you've explained that, it's supposed to confuse spirits.
Speaker A: It's really.
Speaker B: I was picturing, like, a ScoobyDoo house. I'm just like, hijinks and craziness like, Whoa.
Speaker A: Well, in the science room only has one true entrance, but it has three different exits. So there's four doors in each of the four walls. One of them goes into a closet. One of them goes into another room that leads back into the hallway. It's all crazy. And it's meant to confuse the spirits that are following her around this house.
Speaker B: Also, if any, actual real life people were trying to murder her.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Actual living sister, gun victim.
Speaker A: Um, well, there was a nephew who told her that he was going to come by and visit her at her house, and she was like, yeah, no, I'm, um, just giving you money at the door and you're leaving. And that's exactly what happened, because she was like, you do not need to be near me. You do not need to be in here. Okay, yeah, I don't know what the issue was there, but I read that, and that's what was said. Um, there was one cabinet, one built in cabinet. When opened was a doorway into another 30 rooms in the house. That's dope, right? I would love that. But it's like, truly, that portion of the house is closed off. Unless you find that specific cabinet, there's no other way in there.
Speaker B: Yeah, right. But creepy.
Speaker A: There's a skylight in the middle of the floor, which is truly like a window built into the middle of the floor and now has banisters around it to make sure nobody, like, steps on it and falls through.
Speaker B: But can you see into the room that's below? Um, okay.
Speaker A: Yeah. And there are multiple trap doors in the house. So all these crazy things she's built to just confuse spirits, but it confuses everybody else, too. At its highest, the house was seven stories, but the top three floors were collapsed in six during an earthquake, and they were never rebuilt. In fact, the whole unfinished front section of the home was boarded up and not repaired after that earthquake until years later. And it's now the entrance of the home. So when you see pictures of the house, that portion was boarded up for a while. Extra creepy. Yeah. You can still see signs of the earthquake damage, too, because it was just never repaired. The earthquake also toppled a tower in several other rooms, and those were cordoned off as well. The rubble wasn't gone through, like nothing was taken care of in that capacity until years later.
Speaker B: Did your research indicate whether or not she obviously, she built all these rooms to be confusing, but did she furnish these rooms or were there? Don't worry.
Speaker A: Uh, we get in there. Okay.
Speaker B: Never mind. I will.
Speaker A: Objection.
Speaker B: Sustained.
Speaker A: Don't worry. We will get there. So Sarah herself was caught in the fray of this earthquake, this earthquake, and was safe, but stuck in the Daisy bedroom, which had a floral motif. And the Workman had to dig her out because that's how underneath rubble, the house was. Um, but she was fine. She survived. The house was mostly made of Redwood, but Sarah hated the way that it looked, and so much of it is either stained, if exposed, or covered over completely. So, like, wallpaper, all paintings and stuff just covered it. Because of this, the house required at least 20,500 gallons of paint to be covered completely. Like, the outside, it's a lot of paint.
Speaker B: Wow.
Speaker A: So only one of the 13 bathrooms was said to be functional.
Speaker B: Good luck.
Speaker A: And the rest were decoys. Imagine being stuck on the third floor, and you really need to pee. You have to go all the way through the cabinet door, and I can't imagine. It's terrible. Um, and she had staff. It wasn't like she was alone in this big, crazy house. She had staff, and she had workmen, and she had her niece. She had friends and stuff like that. But she's just like, I'm the only one who can use the bathroom. Good luck to everybody else, I guess. Don't go anywhere too far away from this bathroom. Um, the modern conveniences of the house were Marvel's at the time, and she like, there was no expense spared. Uh, when you have $26,000, $1,000 a day, just be alive. Seriously. So the house includes steam enforced air heating, modern indoor plumbing, push button gas lights, which is like the ones usually, like, right next to the door, but turn on the gas because there wasn't electricity yet. Um, the Otis elevators with a rare horizontal hydraulic elevator piston, which I guess was innovative at the time.
Speaker UNK: Fancy.
Speaker A: And one hot standing shower from indoor plumbing, which was made specifically to fit the. 410 Sarah and not get her hair wet, because she had her special, like, Victorian piled high. So she would stand in the shower and it would go only, like, neck down. And she's 410. So the shower is, like, really low. But it was only made for her. The adornments on the house were beautiful and as elaborate as the rest of the house. Again, no expense was spared. There are many stained glass windows, most of them commissioned and made by the Pacific American Decorative Company. And some were designed by her, as well as designed for her. So one design that she had made featured a Spider web design, which is throughout the house. She likes Spider webs. She also likes the number 13. She leaned in. She fully leaned in.
Speaker B: She's like, I'm cursed.
Speaker A: All right, here I am. And there's a thought that maybe she was using these motifs as, like, a Ward against the, uh, evil spirits, but they're everywhere. So, like, the number 13 is incorporated in this window that she designed, as well as a Spider web design. But it was never installed. Uh, it was just, like, made it's now in what is called the $26,000 room, which is all of these beautiful stained glass windows that were either never installed or were installed in inner walls that wouldn't catch any light. So other windows were made by Tiffany, like the fancy Tiffany. Um, and one was designed by the man himself. So Mr. Tiffany, I don't remember what his first name is. And it was made so that when sunlight goes through it, a rainbow is cast across the room, but it was installed in an interior wall with no light exposure, so the effect couldn't be seen. So, like, rich people, seriously. So now that one also is in the $26,000 room. So Sarah spent copious amounts of money on decorating the home. Like all types of Victorian furniture, all of it was specifically made for specific rooms. Like, the Daisy room had all the floral motif, and so did the furniture around it. She spent thousands on paintings, and, um, everything was, like, commissioned. Crazy, crazy stuff. But she was also super generous to her neighbors and her staff. She was known to pay almost three times the normal rate for her construction workers daily wage, which at the time would have been about one dollars, $50 per day. Mhm. And she would give them $3 per day, which is insane food time. She also had a yearly social for her staff and neighbors, where she would just invite everyone to come onto the grounds and just, like, enjoy food and each other and music and stuff. So construction didn't end until Sarah passed away on September 5, 1922, of heart failure. It was rumored that at the moment they were notified of her death, the worker stopped mid hammering and just left things as they were unfinished, just as she intended, because she was never supposed to finish the house. It's always supposed to be unfinished at every moment in time. And you can see now, even like nails that are not even put in all the way. You can see them at the house. So the attraction of the house is next. All of Sarah's possessions, all those beautiful things that she spent thousands of dollars on, except for the house. Everything inside except for the house were bequeathed to her niece Daisy and her personal Secretary. So Daisy took what she wanted and then sold everything else at a private auction, which at the time, yes, I get it. But now I'm like.
Speaker B: No historical time travel. We would go back and be like, let us photograph it at least, please.
Speaker A: According, uh, to legend, it took six trucks working 8 hours a day for six weeks to remove all of the furniture from the home. But Sarah Winchester's biographer disputes this because she can't find any evidence of this happening. But I don't know why they would write that down. I don't know. I might not be able to find it. The mansion wasn't mentioned in her will. So appraisers, considering a house worthless due to earthquake damage and its impractical construction and unfinished nature, had it sold to a local investor for $135,000, which is cheap. That is so little, especially considering how much money she must have dumped into this house. Um, and it was leased to John and Mam for the next ten years, and they eventually purchased the house. So they were the ones who started the attraction, and it was actually started five months after Sarah passed. So in February of 1923, the house was opened to the public, and the new mistress of the house, Maimy, took on the role of the first tour guide. And she was, like, all excited about this because she loved this house. She thought it was so cool. In, um, 2016, there was a whole room that they found that had been boarded up with its original furniture. And it included a pump organ like the ones that you press with your feet, and a dress form, which must have been scary for the person who opened a dog. Like, oh, shit, there's a person. The house no longer has the expansive grounds because it was 162 acres. It's now, like, 46 or something like that. But it's only to make sure that it has the space enough for the house and the surrounding gardens and parking and stuff. Yeah, I'm sure. And now they have tours, and the whole house is an attraction for visitors looking to figure out what was going on in Sarah's head. So here are some of the theories as to what was going on in Sarah's head. Okay, there is one theory that Sarah was actually just super interested in architecture, and so kept herself busy with building new rooms and spaces for the house. But she didn't have any proper training, so all of her measurements were off, uh, when she drove her plans. And so the workmen were like, these are the measurements we were given.
Speaker B: This is what the rich lady wants. Let's give her what she wants.
Speaker A: She's paying us three times the normal rate. Might as well give her whatever she wants. Another is that in her grief, Sarah was trying to recreate the time in her life that was her happiest, which was when she and William were building their New Haven home. So they had planned out an entire house for themselves and had it built. And that's where they were living when he passed. There's also a theory, which is currently my favorite, because the people that I found who are like, gung Ho about this, one of them is named Neil the Necromancer.
Speaker B: Shout out to you, Neil.
Speaker A: I found him on Facebook, which just makes it better. But then there was another one that was like an actual website about the Winchester house, because this person wrote an entire book about what I'm about to go into. So this theory is that her House's odd design is inspired by Mr. Francis Bacon. Mr. Bacon. Um, and there is speculation that there is a true meaning quote to the house, and it is a giant puzzle with clues everywhere. So you're supposed to figure out these clues in order to find the meaning of the house, like, secretly deep.
Speaker B: Somewhere there's a button that you get, and then Hogwarts style, it'll all shift and become a house that makes sense.
Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. Um, but there are clues in the, uh, Shakespeare windows in the ballroom and the twists in the iron gates. The thought is that she could have been a member of a mystic society, like the Rosicrucians or the Freemasons or both.
Speaker B: Bingo card.
Speaker A: Seriously, for both of those, the, um, windows in the ballroom read on one wide, unclasped the tables of their thoughts, which is a quote from Troiless and Cressida. And on the other, read these same thoughts, people. This little world from Richard II. Now, Neil, the Necromancer goes in depth about what this could possibly mean, and it is all so speculative that it is just great. I will link his little blurb. He wrote a whole post about it. It's fascinating. So we're going to leave that behind for now. This is so much more than we need to go into. And this is already going to be long enough, but, oh, my gosh. So the last is that the curse is true. And she continued to construct this home because she wanted to keep evil spirits confused and away from her.
Speaker B: I mean, we can't prove that wasn't true, right?
Speaker A: With all of the crazy kind of stuff.
Speaker B: Other than the earthquake and dying of a heart problem. But that's still, like, technically natural causes.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Other than the earthquake.
Speaker A: She didn't face much hardship building the house.
Speaker B: Building it. Yeah, right. I don't know.
Speaker A: All right, so let's get into some of the goosts. Actually, these are fewer than I thought. Okay. Apparently, the house is not as creepy as it's all made out to be, but I still want to go and be creeped out. Okay. Because there are still ghosts there. I just don't think there is malicious. No scary ghosts, no super skinny. So, uh, Harry Houdini came to the house in 1924?
Speaker B: Yes. He was really big into medium.
Speaker A: So he did this whole nationwide tour in 1924 meant to debunk spiritualism. So when he would go to seances and stuff, he would. When asked to close his eyes, he would keep his eyes open. He would try and figure out all of their little tricks and stuff because he was a magician. He was like, yeah, I know what tricks you're trying to pull on me.
Speaker B: Didn't he have, like, a squad of investors?
Speaker A: It was like, the Pinkertons kind of. And I think one of them was a woman who was, like, the top, uh, notch investigator for him, and she would just debunk every single psychic. I wonder if they did Adam Coons. I wonder if he was still alive. Then I should look into that. So Harriet Houdini came to the house in 1924 during his nationwide tour, and he was trying to debunk spiritualism, but he came out of the house with nothing bad to say, and he called it the mystery house. He was just like, Maybe there's ghosts, but can't say that there wasn't just a mystery. Um, another ghostie. Well, actually, the ghost that everyone can at least name is Clyde. His name is Clyde. And, um, many have crossed paths with him. He's a mustachioed man who's often seen pushing a wheelbarrow in the basement. Or sometimes he's found trying to repair one of the fireplaces in the ballroom. But when he's seen, he's described as wearing white overalls with a Victorian Booger hat. And there is a picture of all of the workmen around. I think it's like, of the workmen who were working on the house, and he's the one on the far right. Everyone can point to him and be like, oh, that's the guy I saw. But most of the visitors think, oh, it's an actor.
Speaker B: Like, it's great, good.
Speaker A: Uh, job that you've got someone who looks like this dude. Great job. Meanwhile, the management's like, no, you just saw Clyde. Hey, doctor, you just saw Clyde. So he's the one who's often seen. There is also one that the marketing director took in 2015 of the house. This picture she took at the house that she was meaning to post to Facebook, but she captured a woman in the window that at first looked like a reflection of the clouds, but you can see a fairly clear outline of a head and shoulders and skirt that trails off into like, darkness. And she's all like ghost white, like Ghosty white. So that picture is going to be on the Instagram. I will show you in a minute. Okay, it's real cool. Um, one of the maintenance workers, his name was Benny, was in the water tower when he heard footsteps above him. It was a three story tower and was off limits. So he went up the steps to let the person know, and the footsteps were always above him. So he's like, oh, they must be continuing to go upstairs. Then he got to the roof and there was no one there, so he's just here in footsteps. The third floor is said to have the most activity as it was the servants quarters. Um, so there was a lot of activity of people there. Anyway, at one time, Sarah's room is also said to have a lot of activity, but everyone who has felt any activity there has said it has been either pleasant or sad. It's never been hostile. Zack Bagans and his ghost adventures, which I watched clips from them going here. And it was, I don't want to say funny. It was slightly funny, but it was also like, he's just yelling at the ghost. He's just saying, show yourself. We want to see you. Like, dude, don't stop cat calling ghosts, bro.
Speaker B: Like, no, but when has that ever worked?
Speaker A: Don't cat call a ghost, man. It was truly like, dude, calm down. Like, he's screaming into the house. Um, but their investigation resulted in one team member feeling drawn to another room and feeling like someone else had entered his body for a minute. And when Zack looked at him at one point, he was like, that was not you. And they hadn't talked to each other before that. He had come out of the room and he'd been like, Whoa, that's not your face. And it was like for a second, which is like.
Speaker B: But also like, this dude.
Speaker A: Uh, I love him.
Speaker B: But I hate him also with things like that, unless I see a full three hour unedited tape, I'm like, I don't know, you could have cut the camp or you could have gone in agreeing like.
Speaker A: Okay, at one point you're going to go off and then when you come back, I'm going to say this. Yeah, I am as skeptic well. And they also didn't find anything on any of their cameras or the EVPs that they were using. How it's like the static and then it catches some voices. Mhm, those voices are being drawn from radio waves. So the likelihood of you picking up a radio wave like a radio show. Yeah.
Speaker B: In San Jose, California. Yeah. Not like you're in the middle of nowhere in Alaska.
Speaker A: Yeah. So in any case, their investigation, quote, unquote, proved that there are ghosts in the house, but also, according to medium James Van Pragh, which is PR Aagh. So I hope I'm saying that right. He's apparently a fairly famous TV medium. He, um, channeled Sarah at a Seance dinner, and she said she was very happy that the house had so many visitors, which, uh, is just really sweet.
Speaker B: Also ironic if she didn't even let her nephew.
Speaker A: I'm not really. Yeah.
Speaker B: So maybe she just didn't like him.
Speaker A: She might not just like him. Well, because she had her niece in there, and she had all her staff, uh, and she had friends who would come and visit.
Speaker B: Imagine showing up for work. That's a historical novel. I need some young girl showing up for a maid job, and then she's like.
Speaker A: What end up in this house?
Speaker B: What room am I in? Where am I going?
Speaker A: Goodness. All right, so that's the house. Okay, then some little notes now are that the house was apparently Disney's inspiration for the haunted mansion in Disney World. The Red. Um, which makes sense. Mhm and then now there is currently a 350 degree tour available online at the Winchestermistryhouse.com for $9 for you to explore the entire house. So they've done a whole 360, like, visual thing that you can just search the entire house.
Speaker B: You could count the rooms yourself.
Speaker A: But I don't know if maybe it's because some of the rooms are boarded up or some of the rooms are not necessarily. You can't enter them or anything, but. Yeah, that was much shorter than I thought it would be.
Speaker B: Can I reveal something to you?
Speaker A: Oh, sure.
Speaker B: This was fascinating.
Speaker A: This was also not what I thought it was. When I was researching this, I was like, I thought it was going to be a lot more ghosty. A lot more, like, creepy. You know what?
Speaker B: It just came to my brain. When you said Winchester House, my brain supplied HH homes Murder Hotel.
Speaker A: Don't worry. I would love to get there. However, that one is solved. Okay.
Speaker B: But it's still, like, creepy.
Speaker A: It is still creepy. Maybe we can do just, like, some short creepy stories, because there are some where it's like.
Speaker B: But I guess I, uh, guess my brain was, like, building with secret rooms and things the same. So I kept waiting when you were like, and then all her family died.
Speaker A: I was like, oh.
Speaker B: And this is when she goes crazy and builds the murder house.
Speaker A: And then you never got to that point.
Speaker B: She was actually just like, a nice, eccentric lady.
Speaker A: Yeah. So far as we know, she was just an eccentric versus crazy because she was rich. So she's eccentric.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: You're only crazy when you don't have the money to pretend like you're fun.
Speaker B: Put that on the merch. Seriously, we're got so much merch.
Speaker A: It's just going to be T shirts that we write on for our fall puppy paint. It's just going to be puffy paint.
Speaker B: We have artist friends.
Speaker A: We do. We get many Sarah or Rory to do.
Speaker B: Like, stickers or something. So many Christmas presents for our family, so many stickers about our podcast that we're going to give you.
Speaker A: Good Lord.
Speaker B: Anyway, well, thank you for sharing that, Emma. You're welcome. I don't know. Maybe I'll keep you listening that virtual tour.
Speaker A: I know I kind of wanted to do it. The reason I didn't do it was because I was like, it's just going to take me forever to look through the whole thing. Very sure that I was like.
Speaker B: Also, I think I would want, like, an Investigation Discovery TV special where some soothing voiced person is, like, talking me through, like, oh, and here you see the Daisy Room, named for her niece.
Speaker A: Who blah, blah, blah. Like when you go to a Museum and they give you audio. Yes, precisely. That's fair. I mean, I thought it was going to be a lot more spooky when I first did it, when I was first researching it, but it's really just kind of sad.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: I hope the curse wasn't actually real. And she just made a house that was fun for her to make, because, honestly, she probably was just coping with all of her grief. She was in mourning for her whole life. Like, she wore black from the moment her daughter died until her death.
Speaker B: Which I'm sure only added to the eccentric, I'm sure.
Speaker A: And there's only two photographs known photographs of her. So I'll post both of those, too. She's a very pretty woman, and it's kind of sad that we don't have more photos of her, because the second and last photo that we have of her is in front of the house. Um, but I feel like she was kind of house proud in a way, at least if you're going to spend all that money to build.
Speaker B: It furnishing your life's work.
Speaker A: And you should be proud of the fact that you're keeping all the ghosties at Bay, right?
Speaker B: True. And you're supporting the local economy, you're giving jobs, important small businesses, you guys. All right, well, if you want to see these photos that Emma has to share, you can find us on Instagram at, uh, this podcast doesn't exist. No, Apostrophe, because that's how handles work. Uh, but we will be posting these photos, so, uh, you can see, uh, the ghosts and the cool house and one of the two photos, maybe both of them of Miss Sarah Winchester.
Speaker A: Yeah. And if you have any ghost stories about this house, if you've gone there, I really want to go. But if you have anything that you would like to share with us, you can shoot us an email at this podcast doesn't exist@gmail.com. No. Uh, apostrophe. And we would love to hear. I love ghost stories. I get so creeped out by ghost movies. I've seen Paranormal Activity. I've seen it once. I never need to see it. Again.
Speaker B: Never again.
Speaker A: That kind of scariness doesn't I think I'm more invested in the stories Than I am in the actual ghost. Do you know what I mean? Are you in Angus doing any spooky movie nights for, uh, not November. It's October. October? No. We, um, watched nightmare before Christmas the other night, but it was not I was actually kind of, like, not into it, I think, because it's still coveted times. It doesn't feel like it's really spooky season and spooky season is my favorite. We got pumpkins yesterday, but we got them at, like, home depot.
Speaker B: Well, hot take. I don't really love nightmare before Christmas. Freak me out. I know it's not claymation.
Speaker A: Well, no, it is. It's like half claymation, half like.
Speaker B: I also only saw it for the first time in, like, 2014. Okay, so later and I felt like by that point, I had been influenced to believe that I needed to love this and be super into this, and I was like, I don't love it.
Speaker A: It's not even a Halloween movie. No, it's also not a Christmas movie. No, it's a Thanksgiving movie. Yeah, it's a Thanksgiving movie. So I was watching at the wrong time. I've actually asked Rachel, who's one of my friends who's super into horror movies if there's an easing into horror movie that I could watch. And she was like, uh, sure, I'll look into it and I was like, maybe the Exorcist since it's, like, older and it won't freak me out Because it's kind of like campy at that point. She was like, no, no, the Exorcist will scare the living daylights out of you. I was like, oh, so she told me about the werewolf of London or something like that. Werewolves in London? Um, and she was like, it's an 80s flick. It's campy and goofy and scary, but fun, so I might be watching that soon. All right.
Speaker B: Well, we hope you're enjoying your spooky season Whenever this is released. Halloween might have already happened, but you can still be spooky in the fall.
Speaker A: So, um, we'll let you get back to all of your fun activities. Spooky activities. And remember, this podcast doesn't exist.

Sources: The house's site: https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
The 360 tour for $9: https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/introducing-360-tour/
Shakespeare, Bacon, and Masons, Oh My!: http://thetruthaboutthewinchesterhouse.com/
Neil the Necromancer: https://www.facebook.com/NeilTobinNecromancer/posts/necromancer-solves-a-winchester-house-mysteryilluminating-the-grand-ballrooma-fe/10154276700363011/
Zak Bagans taunting ghosts: https://www.travelchannel.com/videos/winchester-encounters-0180413 Secrets from Mental Floss and People: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/633036/mental-floss-favorite-horror-books?utm_content=infinitescroll1 and https://people.com/movies/americas-most-haunted-house-creepy-secrets-of-the-winchester-mansion/