March 12, 2025 • 40 mins
The Winchester Mystery House has captivated the world for over 100 years. But was it truly built by Sarah Winchester to appease the spirits of those killed by Winchester Rifles? And just how haunted is it, really? Special Guest: Aiden Sinclair
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Thank you, Haunted Roadies. Two decades ago, I was getting
ready to investigate a dream location, a place that had
been on my bucket list four years, a place I
had visited many times during the day, but the whole
time longed to return at night. Somehow, my team and
(02:04):
I had this place basically to ourselves. We were entrusted
with the keys to the kingdom, as they say. This
massive old mansion has tours during the day, with costumed
guides taking tourists through its many halls. The sun was
going down and the place had been closed for hours.
But as I was bringing my equipment in, there was
(02:25):
who I believed to be one of those costumed docents
scurrying across the lawn like she had some place to be.
In her gray dress and bonnet, she looked quite at
home in her surroundings. But I knew they had gotten
off work hours ago, so I went to my other
team members and let them know what I'd seen, afraid
perhaps that she could contaminate our investigation. A quick call
(02:48):
to security confirmed what we had thought originally. There were
no employees there other than a few security folks. Definitely
no one still in costume. So who had I seen
walking across the lawn that evening? Let's find out? Shall
we join me Haunted roadies as we visit the infamous
Winchester Mystery House. I'm Amy Bruney, and this is Haunted Road.
(03:16):
A very unique house sits in San Jose, California, about
an hour south of San Francisco. It's called the Winchester
Mystery House, and it's a Queen Anne Revival style mansion,
albeit with some Romanesque and Gothic features. The yellow home
has red roofs that ascend into peaks and conical turrets.
(03:36):
If you're a Disney fan, you might think it looks
a lot like their Haunted Mansion attraction, which is fair.
This real home was an inspiration for the ride, and
as striking as it looks from the outside, the inside
of the Winchester Mystery House is truly bizarre. Some of
its one hundred and sixty rooms are dark and stuffy,
(03:57):
others are airy, with big windows to let in the sunlight. Windows, mirrors,
and doors sit in unexpected places or hang at odd angles.
The roof is partially made of glass. Additionally, many of
the windows aren't shaped like a traditional four panel square,
but like a spider web. But it's not the decor
(04:17):
that gives Winchester its reputation, it's the layout. It sprawls
across twenty four thousand square feet and features hallways that
lead nowhere and doors that open to solid walls. This
makes the home maze like and disorienting. Some people have
even said it feels bigger on the inside than on
the outside. The number thirteen seems to be important here.
(04:41):
There's a staircase with thirteen steps, a window with thirteen
panes of glass, and a ceiling with thirteen panels. For
nearly one hundred and forty years, people have speculated about
why the house is like this. The truth is the
history of the Winchester Mystery House is inextricably tied up
with the woman who designed and built it, Sarah Winchester.
(05:04):
She was born in eighteen thirty nine in Connecticut, and
even before Sarah had taken her first breath, tragedy struck
her family. Her parents had previously given birth to another girl,
also named Sarah. That girl died before her second birthday,
and the younger Sarah was named for her deceased sister.
(05:24):
Despite the early loss, Sarah grew up in a large,
wealthy family. She was well educated and known for her beauty,
and when she was in her early twenties, she married
a man named William Winchester. William was rich in his
own right. He was also the son of a gun
manufacturer whose company made the Winchester rifle. It wasn't the
(05:46):
only source of income for William, but it ensured he
and his wife would never want for anything, at least
nothing that could be bought with money. William and Sarah's
marriage was loving, but also marked with more tragedies. Their
first and only child, Annie, died in eighteen sixty six
(06:06):
when she was barely a month old. William and Sarah
were devastated by the loss and coped by designing and
building a home together in New Haven, Connecticut. They both
appreciated architecture and enjoyed this kind of work, so the
project gave them a reason to get out of bed
each day. Years later, Sarah lost her mother in May
(06:26):
of eighteen eighty and in December of that same year,
William's father passed. Sadly, William only outlived his father by
about three more months. In March of eighteen eighty one,
he died of tuberculosis. He was only forty three years old.
After his passing, Sarah inherited half of his firearms company,
(06:46):
as well as his family fortune, and once again Sarah
had to cope with her grief.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
But now she.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Didn't have William to lean on anymore. She never stopped mourning,
and she spent the rest of her life wearing black
clothes and a veil every single day. It probably didn't
help that three years later, in eighteen eighty four, Sarah
suffered another untimely loss. This time it was her oldest sister, Mary,
who succumbed to an illness. By now, Sarah was in
(07:15):
her mid forties and she'd lost her mother, her husband,
her sister, and her only child. It was time for
a fresh start, and she moved to California with her
surviving siblings. This was also when she returned to the
hobby that had given her such relief during an earlier
period of mourning. Home design and construction. In eighteen eighty six,
(07:36):
Sarah bought a small, eight room farmhouse in what's now
San Jose. It was far too modest for her. She
hoped to share the home with all three of her
sisters and their families, so she hired a construction team
to expand the home, and even after her sisters made
separate living arrangements, she kept renovating. Sarah called the property
(07:57):
yonada villa, translated into an English that means house on
flat land, but of course it would later be known
as the Winchester Mystery House. Right off the bat, Sarah
broke with convention. First, she hired two different architects, but
ultimately let them both go so she could design the
house for herself. It was very unusual for women to
(08:20):
do architectural work in the eighteen hundreds, so this certainly
turned some heads. According to Elizabeth Savoda of Atlas Obscura.
Sarah was also an unusually good boss.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
She paid her.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Workers well and gave them frequent breaks. This may have
been because she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which left her
feeling exhausted all of the time. She also sympathized with
her employees and ensured that they had a chance to
rest and recover every time she needed to step back
from her own responsibilities. Sarah's rheumatoid arthritis also made it
(08:55):
difficult for her to walk up and down standard size stairs.
She designed her home staircases to be shallower than usual.
She also rarely interacted with anyone but her construction crews
and family because her condition made it painful for her
to get around town. All to say, Sarah's choices had
logic to them, but her neighbors and other people in
(09:17):
her community weren't privy to these details about her personal life.
They knew Sarah as a mysterious recluse. They also noticed
that by eighteen ninety six, the home was still under construction,
fully ten years after she'd begun. The renovation project. By
now Yanata Villa was several stories high. Sarah had also
(09:38):
added a seven story tower then Once it was finished,
she decided she didn't like it and ordered it to
be torn down and rebuilt, except then she didn't like
the second version of the tower or the third. According
to a newspaper from the time, it took sixteen tries
before the construction crews got the tower just right, and
that situation wasn't unique. According to author Mary Joe Ignoffo,
(10:03):
Sarah had several rooms torn down and rebuilt to ensure
they matched her specifications. Eccentricities like these ensured that rumor
and speculation flew. It was only a matter of time
before people theorized that the ongoing expansions and renovations were
a cult in nature. Some believed that Sarah was building
(10:24):
without ceasing to work out guilty feelings. She may have
been troubled by the fortune her husband had left her,
specifically because he'd made so much of his money selling
Winchester rifles. As the story went, Sarah was also an
avid spiritualist who often hosted seances in her home. During
one of those sessions, a medium supposedly told her that
(10:46):
she'd lost her husband and daughter because gun sales had
brought a curse down on her family. Now the ghost
of every person who'd ever been killed by a Winchester
rifle had come to haunt Sarah as well. She needed
to keep making the house larger and larger to appease
all of the lost souls. If she ever finished construction
or stopped the work, they would kill her too. According
(11:09):
to Mitch Goth of Haunted Us, Sarah hosted even more
seances to consult with the ghosts about what structural changes
she should make. Another rumor said that ghosts couldn't be satisfied,
only avoided, so Sarah intentionally made her home huge and
maze like to make it harder for the specters to
find her. She also supposedly slept in a different bedroom
(11:31):
every night, just to stay one step ahead of the spirits.
By this time in her life, Sarah was very reclusive.
She never entertained guests and rarely appeared in public.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
She also never.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Confirmed or denied any of the speculation, so it's hard
to know if there was any truth to these rumors.
That said, it was quite common for wealthy women at
the time to host seances, and firearms were already controversial
even in those days, so it is quite possible that
a medium could have come to Sarah's home and warned
(12:05):
her about the spiritual dangers associated with her family fortune. However,
there's no hard evidence that Sarah ever hosted a seance
at Yanatavilla, nor did she ever give any indication that
she felt guilty about her association with the Winchester rifle.
Whatever her reasons, Sarah continued expanding the house until disaster struck.
(12:27):
On April eighteenth, nineteen oh six, a massive earthquake shook
San Francisco and the surrounding area. This included San Jose,
where Yanata Villa was standing. There's no record of where
Sarah was that day, but rumor suggests she was at
the Mystery House when the quake hit. The seven story
tower collapsed, as did several of the upper floors. It's
(12:51):
hard to estimate the extent of the damage because there
are no blueprints showing the house's original layout, but the
destruction was unquestionably intensive. As the story goes, Sarah supposedly
became trapped in the room known as the Daisy Bedroom.
Although she repeatedly called for help and rang a bell
to notify her staff that she was in trouble, it
(13:13):
took them hours to find her, since Sarah slept in
a different room every night. They had no idea where
she could have been at the time of the tremor.
Luckily for Sarah, she survived the disaster and made it
out alive. Sadly, her home was badly damaged. She ordered
several crumbling wings and whole stories to be walled off.
(13:34):
Those areas were never repaired, and after the earthquake, the
construction work as a whole ceased.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's possible this is the true.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Reason for the Mystery House's current doorways and hallways to nowhere.
They might not have been built on purpose. Instead, they
were left to sit unrepaired in the aftermath of the earthquake.
But again it's hard to say for sure, because after
the disaster, more and gossip plagued Sarah. Now People whispered
(14:04):
that she was mentally unstable and obsessed with the apocalypse.
Others said the earthquake was a sign that restless spirits
were unhappy with her continued renovations. Whatever the truth lay,
Sarah spent less time at Nada Villa. However, she was
there on September fifth, nineteen twenty two. That's when she
passed away at the age of eighty three, The Winchester
(14:28):
Mystery House sold right away after her death, Even though
appraiser said it had no monetary value whatsoever, the new
owners saw its potential. Though by this time the house
was already rumored to be haunted. Many thought that the
stories of Sarah hiding from the ghosts of the Winchester
Rifle victims had a ring of authenticity, whether they were
(14:49):
true or not, and by summer nineteen twenty three, the
new owners were marketing it as a haunted house and
offering tours to their customers. In October ninth, teen twenty four,
Harry Houdini himself visited. Now Houdini was there to investigate
not because he believed it was haunted, but because he
wanted to debunk the rumors. But according to the Winchester
(15:13):
Mystery House website, he left the house feeling conflicted about
whatever he had experienced there. These days, tourists are still
allowed to walk through the home and explore its mysteries
for themselves. Time magazine considers it one of the top
ten most haunted places.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
In the whole world.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Numerous visitors claim they felt a presence in the home,
a friendly one that said some staffers and tourists flat
out refused to go into certain rooms. That includes the
so called Witch's Cap, which is in the South Turret.
It's not easy to get there. Visitors have to go
through a cluttered attic and a narrow hallway that's only
five feet tall. Eventually they'll reach a wooden, circular room
(15:57):
that's supposed to be a hotbed for supernatural incidents. The
Daisy Bedroom is also highly active. That is the room
where Sarah reportedly got trapped during the nineteen oh six earthquake,
and to this day, cracks from the tremor are.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Visible in the walls.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Cameras don't always work properly in the Daisy Bedroom. That's
according to Kathy Alexander of Legends of America. She also
wrote that when visitors do manage to snap a picture,
they'll often end up with a strange looking photo of
a blurry, white, unidentifiable entity. Shadow figures have also appeared
in this room, as have cold spots elsewhere in the home.
(16:37):
People can hear disembodied footsteps, whispers and voices, and distant
piano music. Doors open and close on their own, and
sometimes the home fills with the scent of a freshly
cooked meal even though no one is using the kitchen.
Many reports feature a mustached specter known as Clyde. He's
(16:58):
said to be one of the construction workers who helped
build Yanata Villa, and to this day, his spirit still
hauls wheelbarrows of coal around or tries to fix the
fireplace in the ballroom. Clyde wears white coveralls and sometimes
has a Victorian era hat over his black hair. When
he notices that tourists have spotted him, he usually gives
(17:19):
a friendly nod before getting back to work, and a
few eagle eyed guests have seen a very slim four
foot ten inch woman dressed all in black. She's thought
to be Sarah Winchester herself. The Winchester Mystery House website
says that Sarah can be spotted wandering the halls, looking
out windows, and occasionally visiting the gardens, all things that
(17:42):
she likely.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Did in life as well.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Apparently, it's not only the house that's haunted, but the
objects within it. Over the years, different guests and tourists
stole nick knacks and small items during their visits, and
regularly these sticky fingered individuals would suffer from bad luck afterward,
until eventually they'd mailed the stolen object back to Yanadavia.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Hoping for relief.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
To talk about all this history and all these stories.
Up next, we're going to be talking to my dear
friend Aiden Sinclair, who worked at the Mystery House for years.
He's got some really great stories to tell, and that
is coming up after the break. So now I am
(18:33):
joined by one of my very good friends, mister Aiden Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
This is not his first time to the show. He is.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I guess you're a resident magician at the Stanley Hotel
and you had an affiliation with the Winchester House for
a long time, So what happened there?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, we've been really lucky to get to kind of
perform and investigate at probably the three most famous haunted
places in the US, being the Stanley Hotel, the Queen Mary,
and the Winchester Mystery House, which is really kind of cool,
you know, it's like a nice thing to have in
your portfolio. But we did shows for the Winchester Mystery
(19:13):
House for about three years, and we actually did their
first public paranormal investigation there as well, and that was
pre COVID back and I think in twenty twenty we
got to do that brought in twenty people who got
to have the experience, and it's just an immensely fascinating
place and really really cool and obviously amazing history.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, so I've actually investigated there and it's been many,
many years.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think I investigated their pre TV and everything, and
it was kind of when there was still kind of
a novelty to a paranormal team asking to come into
a location, and one of our team members actually worked there,
and so we were able to go in and investigate
a couple of times and it was super interesting. It's
(20:00):
hard not to like be distracted by your surroundings the
whole time because there's just so much to look at.
And so now I do just want to say, I
want to preface this before we get too far into this,
because I did mention that you are a magician, a
very skilled one at that, but you're also very much
on the level when it comes to like paranormal activity.
(20:21):
Like I trust you immensely. I don't think you're you know,
conjuring spirits as they say, you know what I mean,
You're very respectful of the paranormal and so I just
wanted to put that out there Aidan is awesome and
I love how much you incorporate just in your act
in general spiritualism and seances and it's just really stunning stuff.
(20:43):
So if you ever have the chance to see Aidan,
please do. We'll talk more about it at the end,
but anyway, so you get the chance to kind of
run these public investigations at the house. Now before you
even started doing that, like, what were some of the
things that you either knew happened there or you experiences
yourself in the location.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Well, we on our very first trip up there, there
is this It's one of those things where you see
shadows out of the corner of your eye, you know,
where like you definitely feel somebody there, and then you
turn in it's empty space and you get that feeling
a lot of being watched, which is really uncanny. You know,
it makes your hair stand up on your neck. And
(21:22):
there's this amazing history of things just being moved, you know,
not in a poltergeisty way, not in a bad way,
and there's definitely this presence that's there. The first trip there,
we just always had that feeling of where we went
in the house like somebody was with you. And learning
(21:42):
the history of Sarah. To me, it became really kind
of it felt a lot like I don't think Sarah's there,
but I think all the people who took care of
Sarah are very much still there taking care of her,
if that makes any sense. You know, her staff was
really loyal to or they were very protective of her.
I think when that's part of somebody's essence in life,
(22:03):
that maybe that hangs around afterwards, you know, and that
especially with all the traffic and kind of the exploitation
of the place, I think that that makes them stay,
you know, and makes them feel like they have to
be protective and present.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
That's something to kind of talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Do you think that, like the kind of the exploitation
of her story in general, do you think that that
adds to the activity. Do you think that's one of
the reasons why things happen there?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I think it does. I think it's fascinating that, you know,
the paranormal teams that tend to be more shall we
say aggressive, or you know, they kind of they could
be kind of provocative when they go places, you know,
and their their tonality is much darker. You know, that's
always is there a demon here? You know that stuff.
(22:50):
I think when that stuff goes into the house, I
don't think the provocation generates in interactions, but I think
there's a dislike for that, you know what I mean
of that's not what we are and that's not what
this is. And I think that stimulates some activity in
a way that is not necessarily good, because I think
some people will go and go, well, if you provoke
(23:10):
the ghost, maybe you get a response, but that would
be like somebody coming into your house and being rude,
and of course you're going to respond in a rude way.
So I don't know. I feel kind of the people
there are. I think all the traffic there gives purpose
to the entities there, if that makes any sense, Like
they have a reason to stay there.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It sounds very personal, and you know, I think that
a lot of hauntings are kind of personal like that,
like they feel an obligation. Now when people are doing
public investigations there, I'm sure when you guys ran those,
you obviously asked for them to be very respectful and whatnot,
Like what kind of things happened during these investigations Regularly.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
We had some really cool direct conversational K two interaction
there and Estes sessions there were really powerful. The Estas
method is something that I just love because it's just
so clean in the sense that you know, you have
somebody in headphones and they're blind and they can't hear
anything and they can't see anything, and when you get
(24:16):
intelligent responses, it's just fascinating, you know, to watch that
experience take place. And Esta's sessions there were really kind
of responsive so long as the questioning was respectful and courteous.
We always use the present tense, and we never said Sarah.
(24:36):
We'd always say, is miss Winchester? You know, you try
to keep the formality of the time, and those seem
to genuate generate really good conversational responses in Estes. Anytime
we would ask if Miss Winchester was in the house,
we would get very definitive no, she's away, And that's
(24:56):
kind of a cool response to get, you know, from
someone who can't hear that question. Very direct conversational responses
of do you take care of her? Yes? Do you
take care of the house? Yes? And I think it's
fascinating that most of the apparitions that have been kind
of seen or witnessed in the house tend to be workmen,
(25:16):
you know, people that are building and working on the house,
or people that are in period clothing that you know,
are women dressed as servants, not as not as you know,
modern day people. So that's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
That was my experience there. So this was this was
so many years ago, but we got there after hours
and everything was closed and I'll never forget like I
saw a woman kind of like walking across the grounds
area and this was in the evening hours, like kind
of you know, dusk, you know, not super dark yet,
(25:54):
and I remember just going, oh my god, I thought
everyone was gone. I didn't know there were still employees here.
And someone said, no, everyone's gone, and I you know,
that was one time where like you wouldn't even know
if you were there during the day and you were
touring and you saw someone like that, you would just
assume they were part of the staff. And so it
(26:15):
makes you wonder, like how many people just kind of
traverse those halls and kind of go about their tours
and see someone and go, oh, wow, that's a very
clever cosplay happening, you know, but it's actually they've witnessed
a full bodied apparition and.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It happens a lot there with the staff, Like the
staff see people all the time there and not they
don't see you know, transparent ghosty things. They see people.
And then they disappeared.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah you know, yeah, no, this looked like a solid woman.
Like I was just very much convinced that someone had
stayed behind. But it also didn't make sense because they
had been closed for hours, and so my brain was, like,
they've been closed for hours, why would there still be
someone scurrying around here in a costume? And so that's
why I asked, or you know, maybe it was someone
(27:02):
playing a practical joke on us or something, because it
was kind of in the earlier days. But it's still
stuck with me. I cannot, of course say for sure
that was a ghost, but it was very very strange.
But I do think that's interesting because they it's the
difference there is that there were people working on that
building consistently for so long that like it might not
even be their full kind of you know, consciousness there,
(27:26):
Like it could just be like they toiled and they
worked and they felt so they felt this sense of
like pride and obligation to the building. Like it's almost
like that essence of them is still there.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If that makes sense, I know it does.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And there's there was staff that literally she you know,
built houses for and lived on the property and were
still alive after she passed, and within a year of
her passing, you know, the house was open to the public.
So those people were still there and started to see
that traffic right away. You know, they were there to
see who dedie come in and do a say, you know,
(28:00):
And now all of that had to feel pretty disrespectful
to somebody that you love and cherish and take care of.
And now all of a sudden, you know, this house
they created is a spectacle. I also think it's fascinating
that a lot of people get so fixated on the
house that a lot of people aren't aware that, like,
she had another house and that house isn't weird, it's
(28:21):
you know, there are some motifs that transfer over. The
number thirteen was present in both houses, and spider webbing
and glasses you know, and is there. But it's a
normal house. There's not doors to know where the construction
didn't continue. She also had a house boat that she
spent a lot of time on, perfectly normal, you know,
(28:41):
So it's this idea that she just stayed in this
house and never left it, and you know, the spirits
made her keep building. I think that's it's a great story.
But I think if you take a step back and
you look at her story, you know, people deal with
grief in different ways, and for me was Sarah. I
(29:01):
think the focus of building that house, like she would
build a room and when it was done, undo it
and do it again. You know. So I think if
you could dedicate one hundred percent of your attention and
time into a project, you're not thinking about the daughter
and the husband that you lost, and you know that's
(29:23):
the house. To me, really is this exercising grief of
like how do I how do I not think about that?
You know, let me let me just focus on something.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Which is honestly kind of a more fascinating aspect to
it as far as like activity. You know, when you
have someone pouring, like when a project becomes when a
project becomes their coping mechanism, Like what happens at that
point to that project? You know, did you find that
(29:53):
when you investigated if you referred to it, you know
as the original house name Yonadavilla, did it get more results?
Because a lot of people don't even refer that name.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Ever, it did so long as we kept everything in period,
it was great. Well was fascinating is that as soon
as we had. Of course, when people are on a
public investigation, they you know, they don't do this all
the time. It might be the one time that they
actually get to investigate, so they're they're not always as
focused in the method, I guess. So you'll kind of
(30:26):
teach people like, hey, try to keep things period specific,
try to keep things in the present tense. But inevitably
someone would be like, what do you think about all
these cars and everything stops? Yeah, it just stops. You know.
Anytime somebody brought up death in the house, activity stopped.
You know, somebody would be like, oh, did you die here?
That's it, We're done.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, And that happens a lot on a lot of hauntings.
You're like, do you think that's really what they want
to talk about? Yeah, you know, it's you know, it
doesn't it's so easy to kind of fall back on that,
but it's also like, once you really think about it,
and sense says, maybe we need to kind of expand
the conversation here, let's talk about the items in the house,
(31:07):
I don't remember off the top of my head. Like
it seems like there's a lot of artifacts there. A
lot are most of them original to Sarah.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
It's a mix. When she passed a lot of the
property was stripped from the house and sold off, and
then some other people came in and tried to recover it.
One of the things that is on site is the
bed that she passed away in is still there right.
A lot of obviously, all the furnishings, the doors and fixtures,
(31:36):
the stairs, all of that is all original. But the
interior property when you go there now, most of the
furniture that you see in the house is period stuff
that's been replaced. The things that are original are mostly
you know, stained glass. One of the things that's really
special to me is the Winchester House gave us a
(31:56):
gift of some original pieces of the house.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So hanging in the underground that the stanley is a
piece of the wall. It's a linn crusta wallpaper, one
of the original nails of the house. That's really cool,
and another piece of cornice tile work. So we have
that on display at the Stanley and it's just kind
of cool to have that history there.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, what a special thing to have. I'm jealous.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
It's really neat. There's a funny story to it. They
made thirteen of these displays when they filmed the Winchester movie,
and they made them for the cast and the directors
of the film, and of the thirteen that were given out,
eleven of them were returned.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh. They thought they were like haunted.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
They said they had range activity and just didn't want
it around.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Wow, And You're like, yes please.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah. Well they were like, hey, you know, nobody seems
to want this, do you want it? I was like,
hell yeah, And we've never had We've never had any issues, Like,
we've never had anything weird happened around the things. But
I also think we treat them with a great deal
of respect, and you know, I think that matters.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
You know, probably feels very at home in that space.
I mean that space that you've created in the underground.
It's probably the perfect place for it, honestly.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah. It's just it's neat too for when people visit
the Stanley to have these connections to other places. So
we have that and we have a little Teddy Bear
from the Queen Mary, so people get to kind of
vicariously visit other haunted locations when they come to see us.
So that's kind of fun of that.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Speaking of kind of artifacts is there, and did you
feel like there was ever any other than those, any
artifacts in the house that had activity around them.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Not really, It's more to me, it seemed more localized.
There's definitely a gentleman that's seen as a full body
apparition who is constantly in the basement. He's seen all
the time, always described in the same way. And what's
fascinating is it's usually not the staff that see him,
it's the tours that go through and they're like, oh,
(34:03):
I saw this guy down the hallway. I thought we
couldn't go down there, and then they described the guy
to a tour guide and they give an accurate description
of someone you know that is actually in a photograph
on property. So that's kind of cool, you know that
you it tends to be more about location than thing,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I was going to ask that, like, are there any
rooms that you feel like have more of a vibe
to them or more activity?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah, the basement definitely, and then upstairs there is a
room called the Widow's cap and that's actually where Houdini
did a seance right after Sarah had passed, about a
year after, so that's kind of got a cool vibe
to it, and it seems to have some activity up
there that there is this question of there have been
(34:49):
many mediums who have gone and done seances in that space,
so there's always this question of is is what's there
part of the house or have people invited things in
too much there?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I was actually wondering if that was an aspect
of the haunting there, like if just having I think
people think about the hauntings there so often, and you know,
some of these locations that are so notorious for being
haunted almost become beacons, you know. Do you think that's
kind of, you know, something that could be influencing activity there.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I think so, And I think a long time ago,
John Tenny, I think, was talking about how you know,
if ghosts are intelligent and they are people, and you
know that people go to certain locations to go to
talk to the dead, then maybe you go there. You
know that that's right. If I want to talk to
(35:44):
somebody and I'm not here then and I know that
people are going to these places, then maybe that's a
good place to be heard. So I think that's a
I think there's a valid theory there. You know.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know if it's ever
the case. It doesn't sound like it at the Winchester House,
but like I've noticed that. You know, sometimes during investigations,
you'll be speaking with someone who seems like they might
be from, you know, another time period, and then suddenly
you've got some modern ghosts busting in and you're like,
where did you come from?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Yeah, And I think it's also like any place that
you know, anybody that becomes attached to it in life.
You know that there are people who love that house.
That's just their favorite place in the world. People get
married there, people have been engaged there that I mean,
it's a that I think also makes them places like
that they become touchdows, you know of you know, when
(36:37):
you when you pass on, maybe that's a thing that
you can go stay in your favorite memory. There's a
lot of those memories there.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
I love that. It's a It is a beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I grew up, you know, in the Bay area nearby,
and so I got to visit a few times and
it was just a treat to be able to investigate it,
and I'm sure it was a real treat for you
to just be in there regularly. I'm very but you're
doing so much like let us like what is aid
and up to these days.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Well, presently we have the Underground at the Stanley Hotel.
It is a underground kind of speakeasy theater at the
Stanley and we present shows there all year round during
the winter where they're Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and from
May through Halloween we're they are seven days a week
and we present theatrical Magic, which is their magic shows
(37:27):
that have a narrative and a story to them, and
they tend to dabble in the supernatural a little bit.
The current show running is called Fate and Futility and
it's really about the concept of fate and free will,
and you know, it delves into the tarot and a
lot of kind of mysticism in its presentation, so it's
really kind of a fun atmosphere to play. And we
(37:48):
also do a theatrical Sounce at the Stanley as well,
and presently my better half Beca is doing all the
paranormal investigating on the Queen Mary. She has a project
called the Great Ghost Project and they do public paranormal
investigations Friday through Sunday on the ship.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I'm looking We're Strange Escapes is heading there in January,
which is not on the website yet.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
I know everybody's very excited though.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
And I'm really looking forward to working with her on that.
And I'm going back to the Stanley in October. They
hired me back this year, so i will see you
again in October, which I'm super stoked about.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Can't wait. We'll have more Mexican food.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That was awesome. I really know.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
It's always nice to, you know, have margaritas before you're
supposed to go on stage.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, I super appreciate you taking the time. I know
you're getting over having the flu and I'm glad you're
on the mend and everyone I encourage you if you
have the chance to support whatever Aiden is doing. Like
I said, he's one of my dearest friends. I love
him a lot, and you will not be disappointed. And
thank you again, sir anytime.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Thank you so much for having me until we meet again.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Throughout her life, Sarah Winchester was a very private person.
She didn't openly talk about why she designed her house
in the way that she did, or about much of
anything else. That led to unfounded gossip, which was so
widespread that it's almost impossible to get a sense of
who she really was. That said, perhaps today the truly
(39:23):
curious can visit the Winchester Mystery House and ask her
for themselves. I am Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road.
Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and
(39:43):
Miles from Aaron Minkey. Haunted Road is hosted and written
by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by Cassandra de Alba.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
This show is edited.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive producers.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Aaron Mank, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Learn more about this show over at Grimandmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, Haunted Roadies, I know you like spooky stuff, That's
why you're here, But have you taken it a step
further and joined the Paranormal Circle yet? The Paranormal Circle
is an online community that I created for all of
us ghost nerds. It focus on ghosts, hauntings, paranormal investigations, research,
(00:32):
you name it. So whether you're a casual ghost story
lover or a full on paranormal enthusiast, I know you're
going to love the Circle. We have live q and
as and roundtable discussions with guests like Josh Gates, Chip Coffee,
Adam Berry and Moore. There are twenty four to seven
live webcams streaming from haunted locations, including Against my Better
(00:56):
Judgment one in my very own attic of my three
hundred year old house, focus on a bunch of haunted
things that I've collected over the years. We also do
in person stuff too, meetups at events and conferences, plus
exclusive meetups just for members. If you come see me
on tour, there's always a free gift waiting for Paranormal
Circle members at.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The merch table.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So if this sounds like something you want to check out.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
You can start a free trial today.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Head to Amybrune dot com slash join to find out
more and Haunted Roadies. You can use code Haunted road
ten for ten percent off your annual membership. I've tried
to keep this very affordable. Full disclosure, it's eight to
ten dollars a month, but I think what you get
for that is pretty incredible. So please check it out.
(01:42):
Join us if you dare. We'll see you out there.
Thank you, Haunted Roadies. Two decades ago, I was getting
ready to investigate a dream location, a place that had
been on my bucket list four years, a place I
had visited many times during the day, but the whole
time longed to return at night. Somehow, my team and
(02:04):
I had this place basically to ourselves. We were entrusted
with the keys to the kingdom, as they say. This
massive old mansion has tours during the day, with costumed
guides taking tourists through its many halls. The sun was
going down and the place had been closed for hours.
But as I was bringing my equipment in, there was
(02:25):
who I believed to be one of those costumed docents
scurrying across the lawn like she had some place to be.
In her gray dress and bonnet, she looked quite at
home in her surroundings. But I knew they had gotten
off work hours ago, so I went to my other
team members and let them know what I'd seen, afraid
perhaps that she could contaminate our investigation. A quick call
(02:48):
to security confirmed what we had thought originally. There were
no employees there other than a few security folks. Definitely
no one still in costume. So who had I seen
walking across the lawn that evening? Let's find out? Shall
we join me Haunted roadies as we visit the infamous
Winchester Mystery House. I'm Amy Bruney, and this is Haunted Road.
(03:16):
A very unique house sits in San Jose, California, about
an hour south of San Francisco. It's called the Winchester
Mystery House, and it's a Queen Anne Revival style mansion,
albeit with some Romanesque and Gothic features. The yellow home
has red roofs that ascend into peaks and conical turrets.
(03:36):
If you're a Disney fan, you might think it looks
a lot like their Haunted Mansion attraction, which is fair.
This real home was an inspiration for the ride, and
as striking as it looks from the outside, the inside
of the Winchester Mystery House is truly bizarre. Some of
its one hundred and sixty rooms are dark and stuffy,
(03:57):
others are airy, with big windows to let in the sunlight. Windows, mirrors,
and doors sit in unexpected places or hang at odd angles.
The roof is partially made of glass. Additionally, many of
the windows aren't shaped like a traditional four panel square,
but like a spider web. But it's not the decor
(04:17):
that gives Winchester its reputation, it's the layout. It sprawls
across twenty four thousand square feet and features hallways that
lead nowhere and doors that open to solid walls. This
makes the home maze like and disorienting. Some people have
even said it feels bigger on the inside than on
the outside. The number thirteen seems to be important here.
(04:41):
There's a staircase with thirteen steps, a window with thirteen
panes of glass, and a ceiling with thirteen panels. For
nearly one hundred and forty years, people have speculated about
why the house is like this. The truth is the
history of the Winchester Mystery House is inextricably tied up
with the woman who designed and built it, Sarah Winchester.
(05:04):
She was born in eighteen thirty nine in Connecticut, and
even before Sarah had taken her first breath, tragedy struck
her family. Her parents had previously given birth to another girl,
also named Sarah. That girl died before her second birthday,
and the younger Sarah was named for her deceased sister.
(05:24):
Despite the early loss, Sarah grew up in a large,
wealthy family. She was well educated and known for her beauty,
and when she was in her early twenties, she married
a man named William Winchester. William was rich in his
own right. He was also the son of a gun
manufacturer whose company made the Winchester rifle. It wasn't the
(05:46):
only source of income for William, but it ensured he
and his wife would never want for anything, at least
nothing that could be bought with money. William and Sarah's
marriage was loving, but also marked with more tragedies. Their
first and only child, Annie, died in eighteen sixty six
(06:06):
when she was barely a month old. William and Sarah
were devastated by the loss and coped by designing and
building a home together in New Haven, Connecticut. They both
appreciated architecture and enjoyed this kind of work, so the
project gave them a reason to get out of bed
each day. Years later, Sarah lost her mother in May
(06:26):
of eighteen eighty and in December of that same year,
William's father passed. Sadly, William only outlived his father by
about three more months. In March of eighteen eighty one,
he died of tuberculosis. He was only forty three years old.
After his passing, Sarah inherited half of his firearms company,
(06:46):
as well as his family fortune, and once again Sarah
had to cope with her grief.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
But now she.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Didn't have William to lean on anymore. She never stopped mourning,
and she spent the rest of her life wearing black
clothes and a veil every single day. It probably didn't
help that three years later, in eighteen eighty four, Sarah
suffered another untimely loss. This time it was her oldest sister, Mary,
who succumbed to an illness. By now, Sarah was in
(07:15):
her mid forties and she'd lost her mother, her husband,
her sister, and her only child. It was time for
a fresh start, and she moved to California with her
surviving siblings. This was also when she returned to the
hobby that had given her such relief during an earlier
period of mourning. Home design and construction. In eighteen eighty six,
(07:36):
Sarah bought a small, eight room farmhouse in what's now
San Jose. It was far too modest for her. She
hoped to share the home with all three of her
sisters and their families, so she hired a construction team
to expand the home, and even after her sisters made
separate living arrangements, she kept renovating. Sarah called the property
(07:57):
yonada villa, translated into an English that means house on
flat land, but of course it would later be known
as the Winchester Mystery House. Right off the bat, Sarah
broke with convention. First, she hired two different architects, but
ultimately let them both go so she could design the
house for herself. It was very unusual for women to
(08:20):
do architectural work in the eighteen hundreds, so this certainly
turned some heads. According to Elizabeth Savoda of Atlas Obscura.
Sarah was also an unusually good boss.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
She paid her.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Workers well and gave them frequent breaks. This may have
been because she suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which left her
feeling exhausted all of the time. She also sympathized with
her employees and ensured that they had a chance to
rest and recover every time she needed to step back
from her own responsibilities. Sarah's rheumatoid arthritis also made it
(08:55):
difficult for her to walk up and down standard size stairs.
She designed her home staircases to be shallower than usual.
She also rarely interacted with anyone but her construction crews
and family because her condition made it painful for her
to get around town. All to say, Sarah's choices had
logic to them, but her neighbors and other people in
(09:17):
her community weren't privy to these details about her personal life.
They knew Sarah as a mysterious recluse. They also noticed
that by eighteen ninety six, the home was still under construction,
fully ten years after she'd begun. The renovation project. By
now Yanata Villa was several stories high. Sarah had also
(09:38):
added a seven story tower then Once it was finished,
she decided she didn't like it and ordered it to
be torn down and rebuilt, except then she didn't like
the second version of the tower or the third. According
to a newspaper from the time, it took sixteen tries
before the construction crews got the tower just right, and
that situation wasn't unique. According to author Mary Joe Ignoffo,
(10:03):
Sarah had several rooms torn down and rebuilt to ensure
they matched her specifications. Eccentricities like these ensured that rumor
and speculation flew. It was only a matter of time
before people theorized that the ongoing expansions and renovations were
a cult in nature. Some believed that Sarah was building
(10:24):
without ceasing to work out guilty feelings. She may have
been troubled by the fortune her husband had left her,
specifically because he'd made so much of his money selling
Winchester rifles. As the story went, Sarah was also an
avid spiritualist who often hosted seances in her home. During
one of those sessions, a medium supposedly told her that
(10:46):
she'd lost her husband and daughter because gun sales had
brought a curse down on her family. Now the ghost
of every person who'd ever been killed by a Winchester
rifle had come to haunt Sarah as well. She needed
to keep making the house larger and larger to appease
all of the lost souls. If she ever finished construction
or stopped the work, they would kill her too. According
(11:09):
to Mitch Goth of Haunted Us, Sarah hosted even more
seances to consult with the ghosts about what structural changes
she should make. Another rumor said that ghosts couldn't be satisfied,
only avoided, so Sarah intentionally made her home huge and
maze like to make it harder for the specters to
find her. She also supposedly slept in a different bedroom
(11:31):
every night, just to stay one step ahead of the spirits.
By this time in her life, Sarah was very reclusive.
She never entertained guests and rarely appeared in public.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
She also never.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Confirmed or denied any of the speculation, so it's hard
to know if there was any truth to these rumors.
That said, it was quite common for wealthy women at
the time to host seances, and firearms were already controversial
even in those days, so it is quite possible that
a medium could have come to Sarah's home and warned
(12:05):
her about the spiritual dangers associated with her family fortune. However,
there's no hard evidence that Sarah ever hosted a seance
at Yanatavilla, nor did she ever give any indication that
she felt guilty about her association with the Winchester rifle.
Whatever her reasons, Sarah continued expanding the house until disaster struck.
(12:27):
On April eighteenth, nineteen oh six, a massive earthquake shook
San Francisco and the surrounding area. This included San Jose,
where Yanata Villa was standing. There's no record of where
Sarah was that day, but rumor suggests she was at
the Mystery House when the quake hit. The seven story
tower collapsed, as did several of the upper floors. It's
(12:51):
hard to estimate the extent of the damage because there
are no blueprints showing the house's original layout, but the
destruction was unquestionably intensive. As the story goes, Sarah supposedly
became trapped in the room known as the Daisy Bedroom.
Although she repeatedly called for help and rang a bell
to notify her staff that she was in trouble, it
(13:13):
took them hours to find her, since Sarah slept in
a different room every night. They had no idea where
she could have been at the time of the tremor.
Luckily for Sarah, she survived the disaster and made it
out alive. Sadly, her home was badly damaged. She ordered
several crumbling wings and whole stories to be walled off.
(13:34):
Those areas were never repaired, and after the earthquake, the
construction work as a whole ceased.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's possible this is the true.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Reason for the Mystery House's current doorways and hallways to nowhere.
They might not have been built on purpose. Instead, they
were left to sit unrepaired in the aftermath of the earthquake.
But again it's hard to say for sure, because after
the disaster, more and gossip plagued Sarah. Now People whispered
(14:04):
that she was mentally unstable and obsessed with the apocalypse.
Others said the earthquake was a sign that restless spirits
were unhappy with her continued renovations. Whatever the truth lay,
Sarah spent less time at Nada Villa. However, she was
there on September fifth, nineteen twenty two. That's when she
passed away at the age of eighty three, The Winchester
(14:28):
Mystery House sold right away after her death, Even though
appraiser said it had no monetary value whatsoever, the new
owners saw its potential. Though by this time the house
was already rumored to be haunted. Many thought that the
stories of Sarah hiding from the ghosts of the Winchester
Rifle victims had a ring of authenticity, whether they were
(14:49):
true or not, and by summer nineteen twenty three, the
new owners were marketing it as a haunted house and
offering tours to their customers. In October ninth, teen twenty four,
Harry Houdini himself visited. Now Houdini was there to investigate
not because he believed it was haunted, but because he
wanted to debunk the rumors. But according to the Winchester
(15:13):
Mystery House website, he left the house feeling conflicted about
whatever he had experienced there. These days, tourists are still
allowed to walk through the home and explore its mysteries
for themselves. Time magazine considers it one of the top
ten most haunted places.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
In the whole world.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Numerous visitors claim they felt a presence in the home,
a friendly one that said some staffers and tourists flat
out refused to go into certain rooms. That includes the
so called Witch's Cap, which is in the South Turret.
It's not easy to get there. Visitors have to go
through a cluttered attic and a narrow hallway that's only
five feet tall. Eventually they'll reach a wooden, circular room
(15:57):
that's supposed to be a hotbed for supernatural incidents. The
Daisy Bedroom is also highly active. That is the room
where Sarah reportedly got trapped during the nineteen oh six earthquake,
and to this day, cracks from the tremor are.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Visible in the walls.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Cameras don't always work properly in the Daisy Bedroom. That's
according to Kathy Alexander of Legends of America. She also
wrote that when visitors do manage to snap a picture,
they'll often end up with a strange looking photo of
a blurry, white, unidentifiable entity. Shadow figures have also appeared
in this room, as have cold spots elsewhere in the home.
(16:37):
People can hear disembodied footsteps, whispers and voices, and distant
piano music. Doors open and close on their own, and
sometimes the home fills with the scent of a freshly
cooked meal even though no one is using the kitchen.
Many reports feature a mustached specter known as Clyde. He's
(16:58):
said to be one of the construction workers who helped
build Yanata Villa, and to this day, his spirit still
hauls wheelbarrows of coal around or tries to fix the
fireplace in the ballroom. Clyde wears white coveralls and sometimes
has a Victorian era hat over his black hair. When
he notices that tourists have spotted him, he usually gives
(17:19):
a friendly nod before getting back to work, and a
few eagle eyed guests have seen a very slim four
foot ten inch woman dressed all in black. She's thought
to be Sarah Winchester herself. The Winchester Mystery House website
says that Sarah can be spotted wandering the halls, looking
out windows, and occasionally visiting the gardens, all things that
(17:42):
she likely.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Did in life as well.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Apparently, it's not only the house that's haunted, but the
objects within it. Over the years, different guests and tourists
stole nick knacks and small items during their visits, and
regularly these sticky fingered individuals would suffer from bad luck afterward,
until eventually they'd mailed the stolen object back to Yanadavia.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Hoping for relief.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
To talk about all this history and all these stories.
Up next, we're going to be talking to my dear
friend Aiden Sinclair, who worked at the Mystery House for years.
He's got some really great stories to tell, and that
is coming up after the break. So now I am
(18:33):
joined by one of my very good friends, mister Aiden Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
This is not his first time to the show. He is.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I guess you're a resident magician at the Stanley Hotel
and you had an affiliation with the Winchester House for
a long time, So what happened there?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, we've been really lucky to get to kind of
perform and investigate at probably the three most famous haunted
places in the US, being the Stanley Hotel, the Queen Mary,
and the Winchester Mystery House, which is really kind of cool,
you know, it's like a nice thing to have in
your portfolio. But we did shows for the Winchester Mystery
(19:13):
House for about three years, and we actually did their
first public paranormal investigation there as well, and that was
pre COVID back and I think in twenty twenty we
got to do that brought in twenty people who got
to have the experience, and it's just an immensely fascinating
place and really really cool and obviously amazing history.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, so I've actually investigated there and it's been many,
many years.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I think I investigated their pre TV and everything, and
it was kind of when there was still kind of
a novelty to a paranormal team asking to come into
a location, and one of our team members actually worked there,
and so we were able to go in and investigate
a couple of times and it was super interesting. It's
(20:00):
hard not to like be distracted by your surroundings the
whole time because there's just so much to look at.
And so now I do just want to say, I
want to preface this before we get too far into this,
because I did mention that you are a magician, a
very skilled one at that, but you're also very much
on the level when it comes to like paranormal activity.
(20:21):
Like I trust you immensely. I don't think you're you know,
conjuring spirits as they say, you know what I mean,
You're very respectful of the paranormal and so I just
wanted to put that out there Aidan is awesome and
I love how much you incorporate just in your act
in general spiritualism and seances and it's just really stunning stuff.
(20:43):
So if you ever have the chance to see Aidan,
please do. We'll talk more about it at the end,
but anyway, so you get the chance to kind of
run these public investigations at the house. Now before you
even started doing that, like, what were some of the
things that you either knew happened there or you experiences
yourself in the location.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Well, we on our very first trip up there, there
is this It's one of those things where you see
shadows out of the corner of your eye, you know,
where like you definitely feel somebody there, and then you
turn in it's empty space and you get that feeling
a lot of being watched, which is really uncanny. You know,
it makes your hair stand up on your neck. And
(21:22):
there's this amazing history of things just being moved, you know,
not in a poltergeisty way, not in a bad way,
and there's definitely this presence that's there. The first trip there,
we just always had that feeling of where we went
in the house like somebody was with you. And learning
(21:42):
the history of Sarah. To me, it became really kind
of it felt a lot like I don't think Sarah's there,
but I think all the people who took care of
Sarah are very much still there taking care of her,
if that makes any sense. You know, her staff was
really loyal to or they were very protective of her.
I think when that's part of somebody's essence in life,
(22:03):
that maybe that hangs around afterwards, you know, and that
especially with all the traffic and kind of the exploitation
of the place, I think that that makes them stay,
you know, and makes them feel like they have to
be protective and present.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
That's something to kind of talk about.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Do you think that, like the kind of the exploitation
of her story in general, do you think that that
adds to the activity. Do you think that's one of
the reasons why things happen there?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
I think it does. I think it's fascinating that, you know,
the paranormal teams that tend to be more shall we
say aggressive, or you know, they kind of they could
be kind of provocative when they go places, you know,
and their their tonality is much darker. You know, that's
always is there a demon here? You know that stuff.
(22:50):
I think when that stuff goes into the house, I
don't think the provocation generates in interactions, but I think
there's a dislike for that, you know what I mean
of that's not what we are and that's not what
this is. And I think that stimulates some activity in
a way that is not necessarily good, because I think
some people will go and go, well, if you provoke
(23:10):
the ghost, maybe you get a response, but that would
be like somebody coming into your house and being rude,
and of course you're going to respond in a rude way.
So I don't know. I feel kind of the people
there are. I think all the traffic there gives purpose
to the entities there, if that makes any sense, Like
they have a reason to stay there.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It sounds very personal, and you know, I think that
a lot of hauntings are kind of personal like that,
like they feel an obligation. Now when people are doing
public investigations there, I'm sure when you guys ran those,
you obviously asked for them to be very respectful and whatnot,
Like what kind of things happened during these investigations Regularly.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
We had some really cool direct conversational K two interaction
there and Estes sessions there were really powerful. The Estas
method is something that I just love because it's just
so clean in the sense that you know, you have
somebody in headphones and they're blind and they can't hear
anything and they can't see anything, and when you get
(24:16):
intelligent responses, it's just fascinating, you know, to watch that
experience take place. And Esta's sessions there were really kind
of responsive so long as the questioning was respectful and courteous.
We always use the present tense, and we never said Sarah.
(24:36):
We'd always say, is miss Winchester? You know, you try
to keep the formality of the time, and those seem
to genuate generate really good conversational responses in Estes. Anytime
we would ask if Miss Winchester was in the house,
we would get very definitive no, she's away, And that's
(24:56):
kind of a cool response to get, you know, from
someone who can't hear that question. Very direct conversational responses
of do you take care of her? Yes? Do you
take care of the house? Yes? And I think it's
fascinating that most of the apparitions that have been kind
of seen or witnessed in the house tend to be workmen,
(25:16):
you know, people that are building and working on the house,
or people that are in period clothing that you know,
are women dressed as servants, not as not as you know,
modern day people. So that's kind of fascinating.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
That was my experience there. So this was this was
so many years ago, but we got there after hours
and everything was closed and I'll never forget like I
saw a woman kind of like walking across the grounds
area and this was in the evening hours, like kind
of you know, dusk, you know, not super dark yet,
(25:54):
and I remember just going, oh my god, I thought
everyone was gone. I didn't know there were still employees here.
And someone said, no, everyone's gone, and I you know,
that was one time where like you wouldn't even know
if you were there during the day and you were
touring and you saw someone like that, you would just
assume they were part of the staff. And so it
(26:15):
makes you wonder, like how many people just kind of
traverse those halls and kind of go about their tours
and see someone and go, oh, wow, that's a very
clever cosplay happening, you know, but it's actually they've witnessed
a full bodied apparition and.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
It happens a lot there with the staff, Like the
staff see people all the time there and not they
don't see you know, transparent ghosty things. They see people.
And then they disappeared.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah you know, yeah, no, this looked like a solid woman.
Like I was just very much convinced that someone had
stayed behind. But it also didn't make sense because they
had been closed for hours, and so my brain was, like,
they've been closed for hours, why would there still be
someone scurrying around here in a costume? And so that's
why I asked, or you know, maybe it was someone
(27:02):
playing a practical joke on us or something, because it
was kind of in the earlier days. But it's still
stuck with me. I cannot, of course say for sure
that was a ghost, but it was very very strange.
But I do think that's interesting because they it's the
difference there is that there were people working on that
building consistently for so long that like it might not
even be their full kind of you know, consciousness there,
(27:26):
Like it could just be like they toiled and they
worked and they felt so they felt this sense of
like pride and obligation to the building. Like it's almost
like that essence of them is still there.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If that makes sense, I know it does.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
And there's there was staff that literally she you know,
built houses for and lived on the property and were
still alive after she passed, and within a year of
her passing, you know, the house was open to the public.
So those people were still there and started to see
that traffic right away. You know, they were there to
see who dedie come in and do a say, you know,
(28:00):
And now all of that had to feel pretty disrespectful
to somebody that you love and cherish and take care of.
And now all of a sudden, you know, this house
they created is a spectacle. I also think it's fascinating
that a lot of people get so fixated on the
house that a lot of people aren't aware that, like,
she had another house and that house isn't weird, it's
(28:21):
you know, there are some motifs that transfer over. The
number thirteen was present in both houses, and spider webbing
and glasses you know, and is there. But it's a
normal house. There's not doors to know where the construction
didn't continue. She also had a house boat that she
spent a lot of time on, perfectly normal, you know,
(28:41):
So it's this idea that she just stayed in this
house and never left it, and you know, the spirits
made her keep building. I think that's it's a great story.
But I think if you take a step back and
you look at her story, you know, people deal with
grief in different ways, and for me was Sarah. I
(29:01):
think the focus of building that house, like she would
build a room and when it was done, undo it
and do it again. You know. So I think if
you could dedicate one hundred percent of your attention and
time into a project, you're not thinking about the daughter
and the husband that you lost, and you know that's
(29:23):
the house. To me, really is this exercising grief of
like how do I how do I not think about that?
You know, let me let me just focus on something.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Which is honestly kind of a more fascinating aspect to
it as far as like activity. You know, when you
have someone pouring, like when a project becomes when a
project becomes their coping mechanism, Like what happens at that
point to that project? You know, did you find that
(29:53):
when you investigated if you referred to it, you know
as the original house name Yonadavilla, did it get more results?
Because a lot of people don't even refer that name.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Ever, it did so long as we kept everything in period,
it was great. Well was fascinating is that as soon
as we had. Of course, when people are on a
public investigation, they you know, they don't do this all
the time. It might be the one time that they
actually get to investigate, so they're they're not always as
focused in the method, I guess. So you'll kind of
(30:26):
teach people like, hey, try to keep things period specific,
try to keep things in the present tense. But inevitably
someone would be like, what do you think about all
these cars and everything stops? Yeah, it just stops. You know.
Anytime somebody brought up death in the house, activity stopped.
You know, somebody would be like, oh, did you die here?
That's it, We're done.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, And that happens a lot on a lot of hauntings.
You're like, do you think that's really what they want
to talk about? Yeah, you know, it's you know, it
doesn't it's so easy to kind of fall back on that,
but it's also like, once you really think about it,
and sense says, maybe we need to kind of expand
the conversation here, let's talk about the items in the house,
(31:07):
I don't remember off the top of my head. Like
it seems like there's a lot of artifacts there. A
lot are most of them original to Sarah.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
It's a mix. When she passed a lot of the
property was stripped from the house and sold off, and
then some other people came in and tried to recover it.
One of the things that is on site is the
bed that she passed away in is still there right.
A lot of obviously, all the furnishings, the doors and fixtures,
(31:36):
the stairs, all of that is all original. But the
interior property when you go there now, most of the
furniture that you see in the house is period stuff
that's been replaced. The things that are original are mostly
you know, stained glass. One of the things that's really
special to me is the Winchester House gave us a
(31:56):
gift of some original pieces of the house.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
So hanging in the underground that the stanley is a
piece of the wall. It's a linn crusta wallpaper, one
of the original nails of the house. That's really cool,
and another piece of cornice tile work. So we have
that on display at the Stanley and it's just kind
of cool to have that history there.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, what a special thing to have. I'm jealous.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
It's really neat. There's a funny story to it. They
made thirteen of these displays when they filmed the Winchester movie,
and they made them for the cast and the directors
of the film, and of the thirteen that were given out,
eleven of them were returned.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh. They thought they were like haunted.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
They said they had range activity and just didn't want
it around.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Wow, And You're like, yes please.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah. Well they were like, hey, you know, nobody seems
to want this, do you want it? I was like,
hell yeah, And we've never had We've never had any issues, Like,
we've never had anything weird happened around the things. But
I also think we treat them with a great deal
of respect, and you know, I think that matters.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
You know, probably feels very at home in that space.
I mean that space that you've created in the underground.
It's probably the perfect place for it, honestly.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah. It's just it's neat too for when people visit
the Stanley to have these connections to other places. So
we have that and we have a little Teddy Bear
from the Queen Mary, so people get to kind of
vicariously visit other haunted locations when they come to see us.
So that's kind of fun of that.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Speaking of kind of artifacts is there, and did you
feel like there was ever any other than those, any
artifacts in the house that had activity around them.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Not really, It's more to me, it seemed more localized.
There's definitely a gentleman that's seen as a full body
apparition who is constantly in the basement. He's seen all
the time, always described in the same way. And what's
fascinating is it's usually not the staff that see him,
it's the tours that go through and they're like, oh,
(34:03):
I saw this guy down the hallway. I thought we
couldn't go down there, and then they described the guy
to a tour guide and they give an accurate description
of someone you know that is actually in a photograph
on property. So that's kind of cool, you know that
you it tends to be more about location than thing,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I was going to ask that, like, are there any
rooms that you feel like have more of a vibe
to them or more activity?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Yeah, the basement definitely, and then upstairs there is a
room called the Widow's cap and that's actually where Houdini
did a seance right after Sarah had passed, about a
year after, so that's kind of got a cool vibe
to it, and it seems to have some activity up
there that there is this question of there have been
(34:49):
many mediums who have gone and done seances in that space,
so there's always this question of is is what's there
part of the house or have people invited things in
too much there?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I was actually wondering if that was an aspect
of the haunting there, like if just having I think
people think about the hauntings there so often, and you know,
some of these locations that are so notorious for being
haunted almost become beacons, you know. Do you think that's
kind of, you know, something that could be influencing activity there.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
I think so, And I think a long time ago,
John Tenny, I think, was talking about how you know,
if ghosts are intelligent and they are people, and you
know that people go to certain locations to go to
talk to the dead, then maybe you go there. You
know that that's right. If I want to talk to
(35:44):
somebody and I'm not here then and I know that
people are going to these places, then maybe that's a
good place to be heard. So I think that's a
I think there's a valid theory there. You know.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know if it's ever
the case. It doesn't sound like it at the Winchester House,
but like I've noticed that. You know, sometimes during investigations,
you'll be speaking with someone who seems like they might
be from, you know, another time period, and then suddenly
you've got some modern ghosts busting in and you're like,
where did you come from?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Yeah, And I think it's also like any place that
you know, anybody that becomes attached to it in life.
You know that there are people who love that house.
That's just their favorite place in the world. People get
married there, people have been engaged there that I mean,
it's a that I think also makes them places like
that they become touchdows, you know of you know, when
(36:37):
you when you pass on, maybe that's a thing that
you can go stay in your favorite memory. There's a
lot of those memories there.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
I love that. It's a It is a beautiful place.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I grew up, you know, in the Bay area nearby,
and so I got to visit a few times and
it was just a treat to be able to investigate it,
and I'm sure it was a real treat for you
to just be in there regularly. I'm very but you're
doing so much like let us like what is aid
and up to these days.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Well, presently we have the Underground at the Stanley Hotel.
It is a underground kind of speakeasy theater at the
Stanley and we present shows there all year round during
the winter where they're Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and from
May through Halloween we're they are seven days a week
and we present theatrical Magic, which is their magic shows
(37:27):
that have a narrative and a story to them, and
they tend to dabble in the supernatural a little bit.
The current show running is called Fate and Futility and
it's really about the concept of fate and free will,
and you know, it delves into the tarot and a
lot of kind of mysticism in its presentation, so it's
really kind of a fun atmosphere to play. And we
(37:48):
also do a theatrical Sounce at the Stanley as well,
and presently my better half Beca is doing all the
paranormal investigating on the Queen Mary. She has a project
called the Great Ghost Project and they do public paranormal
investigations Friday through Sunday on the ship.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
I'm looking We're Strange Escapes is heading there in January,
which is not on the website yet.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
I know everybody's very excited though.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
And I'm really looking forward to working with her on that.
And I'm going back to the Stanley in October. They
hired me back this year, so i will see you
again in October, which I'm super stoked about.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Can't wait. We'll have more Mexican food.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
That was awesome. I really know.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
It's always nice to, you know, have margaritas before you're
supposed to go on stage.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, I super appreciate you taking the time. I know
you're getting over having the flu and I'm glad you're
on the mend and everyone I encourage you if you
have the chance to support whatever Aiden is doing. Like
I said, he's one of my dearest friends. I love
him a lot, and you will not be disappointed. And
thank you again, sir anytime.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Thank you so much for having me until we meet again.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Throughout her life, Sarah Winchester was a very private person.
She didn't openly talk about why she designed her house
in the way that she did, or about much of
anything else. That led to unfounded gossip, which was so
widespread that it's almost impossible to get a sense of
who she really was. That said, perhaps today the truly
(39:23):
curious can visit the Winchester Mystery House and ask her
for themselves. I am Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road.
Haunted Road is a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and
(39:43):
Miles from Aaron Minkey. Haunted Road is hosted and written
by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by Cassandra de Alba.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
This show is edited.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And produced by supervising producer Rima el Kali, with executive producers.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Aaron Mank, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Learn more about this show over at Grimandmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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