Winchester Mystery House: Encyclopedia II - Winchester Mystery House - The house today

Winchester Mystery House - The house today

Prior to the 1906 earthquake, the house had been built up to seven stories tall, but now the highest point is the fourth floor. The house is predominantly wood frame construction, with a brick foundation. There are 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms and two ballrooms. The house also has 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basements and three elevators. Mrs. Winchester's property was 161.919 acres (650,000 m²) at one time but now the estate is just 6.5 acres (24,000 m²) - the minimum to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. It has gold and silver chandeliers, inlaid parquet floors and trim. There are secret passages and stairways, doors and halls that lead nowhere, and a vast array of colors and materials. Before the availability of elevators, special "easy riser" stairways were installed to allow Mrs. Winchester access to every part of the mansion, despite her severe arthritis. Roughly 20,000 gallons (76,000 litres) of paint are required to paint the house. Due to the sheer size of the house, by the time every section of the house is painted, the workers must start repainting again.

The house also has many conveniences that were rarely found at the time of its construction, including steam and forced-air heating, modern indoor toilets and plumbing, push-button gas lights, hot shower from indoor plumbing and even three elevators, including one model which is unique to the house.

The house retains unique touches that reflect the beliefs of Mrs. Winchester and her reported preoccupation with warding off malevolent spirits. The number thirteen and spiderweb motifs, which she considered to be lucky, reappear around the house. For example, an expensive imported chandelier which originally had twelve candle-holders was (rather awkwardly) altered to accommodate thirteen candles, clothes hooks on the wall are in multiples of thirteen, and a spiderweb-patterned Tiffany window contains thirteen colored stones. In tribute, the house's current groundskeepers have created a topiary tree shaped like the number 13.

Today, several different tours of the house are available. The tours feature different aspects of the estate, such as main parts of the house or the gardens and outbuildings. A flashlight tour of the mansion is given at night on dates around Halloween and every Friday the 13th. Many tour guides have stories of their personal encounters with ghosts or other paranormal events.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The house today", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki