The weird and wonderful truths of ‘Winchester’
A reclusive heir to the Winchester rifle fortune who is haunted by the spirits of those killed by her family’s famed firearms is at the center of the ghost story Winchester (in theaters Friday).
Helen Mirren plays the widowed Sarah Winchester, thought to be insane as she orders constant expansion and renovation of her bizarre Victorian mansion.
“There are many things about the movie that are absolutely real,” says Peter Spierig, who directed Winchester with his brother, Michael Spierig. “But were ghosts haunting Sarah Winchester as people said at the time? There’s nothing to confirm that — or deny it, either.”
Here’s what we know to be true:
1 There was a real Sarah Winchester.
The socialite heiress made a splash when she moved to San Jose from Connecticut in 1884 after the death of her husband, William (and their baby 15 years earlier).
Winchester was a celebrity even before she began drastically overhauling the home that became known as the Winchester Mystery House.
“She was Bill Gates-rich from this famous family, so people watched her, talked about her and speculated,” says Janan Boehme, official historian at Winchester Mystery House, now a preserved tourist attraction.
2 Her Winchester House is a marvel
in opulent oddness. The home started with eight rooms. By 1906, it was seven stories high with an estimated 90 rooms.
The movie riffs on the oft-repeated legend that Winchester had been instructed by a spiritual medium to keep building to ward off the spirits haunting the house. But there’s no indication of that in Winchester’s letters or those of her confidants, Boehme says.
An alternative theory: Winchester was occupying her mind as a way of dealing with her personal grief.
“We may never know why she built like she did,” Boehme says. “But people do certainly conjecture.”
3 The home has a door to nowhere.
The Winchester Mystery House includes fascinating features. Stairways go straight into a ceiling, a doorway opens to a two-story drop, there’s a design preoccupation with the number 13 (closets with 13 hanger pegs, halls with 13 ceiling panels).
Possible explanations vary from an attempt to confuse haunting spirits to design miscues resulting from constant construction.
“But there’s nothing definitive,” Boehme says. “This really is a perplexing house.”
4 The great earthquake rocked it.
The infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, rather than the film’s rampaging spirits, did severely damage Winchester’s home, trapping her in a room. “They had to free her with a crowbar,” Boehme says.
The terrified Winchester tore down the top three damaged floors and spent more time on her nearby houseboat, but continued building out. In 1922, she died of heart failure in her bedroom at Winchester House at age 82.
5 Visitors still insist it’s haunted.
While Winchester herself never mentioned hauntings and friends denied them, speculation was rampant. Harry Houdini even visited after Winchester’s death to debunk spiritualists. But the ghost stories continue today.
Some visitors have sworn to have seen the “wheelbarrow ghost,” a kindly apparition in white overalls who apparently works on the house.
“There is a good energy here,” Boehme says. “Even if none of the ghost stories are true, Sarah Winchester was a truly fascinating person.”