Matt MacNabb - A Secret History of Brands - The Dark and Twisted Beginnings of the Brand Names We Know and Love

In 1904 Sarah had withdrawn from society so completely that she could no longer deal with the servants or workmen anymore. Sarah’s niece Margaret Merriam soon moved in to assist as a liaison to all people. No one was allowed to see Sarah anymore without her full veils and mourning garb and they certainly weren’t allowed to communicate with her directly. The butler would see her in a more relaxed state, only because he had access to her for the purpose of serving her meals.

The seven-story house soon became somewhat of an attraction that drew visitors from miles around. Sarah had a particular obsession with the number thirteen. One press release from the ‘Winchester Mystery House’ details her preoccupation: ‘Her will had 13 parts and was signed 13 times. The house has 13 bathrooms, and the 13th bathroom has 13 windows and 13 steps leading to it. Many windows have 13 panes and rooms have 13 ceiling panels.’ The peculiar mansion spans 24,000sq ft of space and boasts 2,000 doors, fifty-two skylights, forty bedrooms, three elevators, two basements, six kitchens, thirteen bathrooms, forty staircases, forty-seven fireplaces and ten thousand windows.

It is said that the turnaround was high amongst the servants. The legends say that the servants would sometimes leave out of intense fear, and sometimes they were fired for prying or defying orders. Eventually a regular staff was established who would stay with Sarah and protect her from the prying, hurtful eyes of the outside world. The wall of secrecy surrounding the widow and her house only continued to grow as the years went by.

Mrs Winchester would use her secret séance room on a regular basis, but she was so suspicious of prying eyes that she would take a variety of different corridors and secret passageways to the room each time she used it. The séance room was a small, blue room with a barred window and only one obvious entrance and exit. The secret exit did exist, but it was carefully hidden inside a closet. Sarah would spend hours in the room, hoping to consult the spirit of her dearly departed husband. Servants are said to have been able to hear, from outside the door, her speaking out loud to him during these sessions. There were many legends surrounding these supernatural sessions, mostly purported by ex-staff members and local gossips. One such tale spun the yarn that the servants could hear a baby crying from within the room, and another instance entailed a servant who hid in the room. She claims to have seen an ethereal and mystic hand appear out of nowhere with an ornate chalice that Mrs Winchester subsequently drank from in some sort of bizarre ritual. These claims, however, remain absolutely unsubstantiated gossip and urban legend.

Another legend states that Sarah had announced to her servants one day that she would be hosting a lavish ball that very evening, seemingly out of nowhere. A new ballroom had just been completed in the home, with a gorgeous Tiffany chandelier, and she intended to host a celebration ball with food and rare wines. A troupe of musicians were hired and brought in that night to entertain and delight the partygoers with song. A luxurious and decadent dinner was also served on beautifully decorated buffet tables. The ball began with all the appropriate fare, including the butler announcing the names of guests as they arrived. The band is said to have looked on, confused and disturbed, as people were being announced and the ball was rocking along – but there were no actual guests present. The musicians, unnerved by the entire evening, finally fled the eerie scene at two in the morning.

In the wee hours of 18 April 1906, the massive San Andreas fault began to rumble and groan. The subsequent earthquake caused immense damage to Sarah’s home and the house became a death trap with Sarah trapped alone in her room. The servants were unable to hear her muffled cries for help for several hours. They finally discovered her in the ruins of her once beautiful bedroom. The front portion of the house, an area that she had ensured was very lavish and expensive, is what sustained the majority of the damage in the earthquake. The tortured widow took the natural disaster as a sign from ‘the beyond’ that her decadence was being punished. New orders were given to board-up that area of the house and no one was allowed there again after that point. The quake shook Sarah so deeply that she left the home to live in various other places. One such place was a houseboat anchored in the San Francisco Bay. Other sites included a ranch, and a home in Atherton. Sarah continued to move around for the next six years. She would send daily orders to the foreman, and construction crews would continue, but she did not return to the home once during this time.

In the spring of 1912, Sarah returned to the home and renewed the building at a near frantic pace. She was suffering from a crippling form of arthritis and her health was beginning to decline. Thanks to her condition she was often confined to her living quarters. A decade later on, the night of 4 September 1922, the evening crew stopped work to play cards and have some whiskey to relax and unwind after a hard day’s work. They hadn’t seen Mrs Winchester for months and weren’t sure if she was even still on the grounds, or living in her other home. The following morning, Sarah’s niece Margaret went to her room in order to check on her aunt. The tortured widow Sarah Winchester was dead; she had died in her sleep.

The obituary in one San Jose newspaper recalled the widow’s life: ‘She has lived a quiet, secluded life here for about thirty years. For many years she has aided financially the department of the Connecticut state hospital devoted to the treatment of tuberculosis patients, as well as being interested in other charitable activities.’ Sarah Winchester may have been laid to rest, but her legend had only just begun.

The beautiful and carefully restored Queen Anne Victorian home at 525 S. Winchester Boulevard still stands today. Today, the six-acre property is a tourist trap. You can visit the home and take tours that include the grand ballroom, private séance chambers and more – there is even a special ‘behind the scenes’ tour. The tour guides will tell tales of the mysterious widow who spent her millions on a home to house the spirits that haunted her.

During the Halloween season tour guides now offer a night-time ‘Halloween Candlelight Tour’ at the home, promoting the supernatural aspects of the legend of Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House. The press release for the tour touts it as a seriously spooky event:

TIME magazine has called us one of the ‘Most Haunted Places in the World’ and this Halloween we’re enhancing what’s already here with an all-new macabre, atmospheric, and truly creepy overlay with our limited time only Halloween Candlelight Tour offering.

Peter Overstreet, one of the successful directors at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair in San Francisco states:

During the candlelit visit some kind of paranormal force will definitely be awakened within the house, much to the shock of guests on the tour…. This all-new experience for guests to the Winchester Mystery House will be both a physical visit and a great example of ‘theater of the mind’ where your imagination is coerced to fill in the blanks to even more frightful effect.

It is commonly thought that after a certain point, Sarah’s isolation may have had a lot to do with her severe arthritis. In reality, she was an intelligent, generous woman who spoke four languages, loved the arts, sent gifts of food from her garden to needy families and, according to her former servants, donated to many charities. The facts surrounding the mysterious widow are actually few and far between. Her legacy is shrouded in legend and hearsay, which all serves to make her life seem far more fanciful and mysterious than it likely was. Mary Jo Ignoffo described Sarah Winchester to me as: