The haunted house of America's most famous 'mad widow'

Winchester Mystery is known as America's most haunted mansion with a legend about its strange landlady.

Since its construction, this building has always attracted the attention of many tourists around the world because of its strange design with secret passages, stairs leading nowhere or doors opening into meaningless space. Winchester Mystery is a mansion built by Sarah Winchester, a widow who inherited a huge fortune from her husband's family. The house is located next to a major highway in San Jose, California, USA.

The house was built continuously for nearly 40 years, it is believed that the construction work distracted Sarah and partly eased the pain of losing her husband and children. Photo: News.

In 1862, at the height of the Civil War, Sarah Lockwood Pardee married William Wirt Winchester, heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which had developed the first semi-automatic rifles for use in the Union Army.

After getting married, Sarah gave birth to a daughter. But unfortunately the girl died early. Not long after, the woman had to face the crisis because of her husband's death. William passed away, leaving Sarah a huge inheritance of up to 20 million USD and a profit of 1,000 USD (equivalent to 30,000 USD in today's value) per day from the weapons manufacturing company.

Too heartbroken over the death of her husband and children, Sarah decided to go to her husband's spirit. The medium in that spirit said that the Winchester family was haunted by the ghosts of the victims who died from the gun her husband made. To escape the haunting of the ghosts and not let them drag her to hell, Sarah had to build a mansion to distract them.

The widow then left her home in Connecticut and purchased an unfinished farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley. From there, she spent the last 38 years of her life building this home to distract the demon.

The house has stairs and windows that lead nowhere. Photo: News.

Winchester Mystery was built without any architect's blueprint. It was "directed" directly by the strange ideas of the owner herself. Sarah actually did not care much about what her place looked like. She just built and built, with rooms within rooms, doors that merged with windows, stairs that led nowhere, chimneys that were useless and cupboards that opened to reveal brick walls. Sarah believed that only the daily sounds of hammers and chisels could dispel the dark supernatural forces.

The wealthy heiress was also obsessed with the number 13, the door had to have 13 glass panels, the floor had 13 wooden boards, each room had 13 windows... She believed that the complicated design of the house would confuse the ghosts and they could not find her in this maze-like house. Every night, she often wandered the hallways of the house, trying to find a way to escape the ghosts that were haunting her. Most people living at that time believed that the widow had gone crazy.

After many years of construction, Winchester Mystery became one of the largest, most beautiful, and most expensive buildings at that time in America. Photo: News.

In 1922, the mad widow died in a deep sleep, at the age of 83. She lived a lonely life in the mansion grounds, her only friends were probably the servants and masons who worked day and night.

At the time of Sarah's death, the mansion had 7 floors, 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, 47 staircases, 13 bathrooms, 47 fireplaces, 6 kitchens and around 2,000 doors. It is believed that Sarah's ghost returned to the house and haunts it to this day.

The house of the "mad widow" later became a popular tourist destination. It is known for its "unique" structure, mysterious owner and rumors of ghosts.

Some visitors have reported hearing whispering voices, footsteps running down the hallway, doorknobs opening by themselves, and ghosts. One of them was a young girl in a black dress.

Many people have reported experiencing strange sensations when visiting the house, such as nausea and dry throats in certain rooms. Today, the house has inspired many horror films. It has also appeared in American ghost hunting TV shows.

According to Vnexpress.net