Winchester House, San Jose

One of the strangest houses in America has to be the Winchester House in San Jose. I got to spend a few minutes there doing a quick tour before a dinner last January. The mansion totals 160 rooms built to accommodate a 4 foot 11 inch tall Sarah Winchester, one of the richest women in America before the turn of the last century. She was the widow of the son of Oliver Winchester who perfected the Winchester repeating rifle. After Sarah's husband and daughter died she was convinced by a medium that she had to move west and continue building a home for all the souls that the Winchester rifle killed or she would also die an untimely death. So, she moved to San Jose and built a mansion where construction continued every day on the house for 38 years until she died at the age of 82 in 1922. This house is full of stairways leading to nowhere, doors on the ceiling, and quite a number of 13th rooms. The house has over 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens. Very strange.