Winchester Mystery House, Victorian mansion in West San Jose, United States

The Winchester Mystery House is a wooden Victorian mansion with steep red-shingled gables, a round tower with a conical roof, and a covered porch on columns. It has 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, six kitchens, and 52 skylights. The facade mixes horizontal siding with decorative panels, and some upper windows have arched or circular tops.

Sarah Winchester moved from New Haven to California in 1885 and in 1886 bought a 45-acre ranch near San Jose with a two-story, eight-room farmhouse, naming it Llanada Villa after the Llanada Alavesa region. She dismissed at least two architects and planned the expansions herself, rebuilding unsatisfactory work; a seven-story tower was reportedly torn down and rebuilt 16 times. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake collapsed three upper stories, leaving four. After her death in 1922 the house was auctioned to a local investor and opened to the public in February 1923, with Mayme Brown as first guide.

Popular legend holds that a Boston medium told Sarah Winchester to build without end so the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles could not settle; biographer Mary Jo Ignoffo shows the house was not under constant construction for 38 years. The name Llanada Villa comes from the Llanada Alavesa region of the Basque Country, which the Santa Clara Valley ranch reminded her of. Since February 1923 it has operated as a museum, with Mayme Brown as its first tour guide.

The estate offers various guided tours through 110 rooms, including evening flashlight experiences and seasonal Halloween programs with advance booking required. Visitors should wear comfortable shoes due to numerous staircases and uneven surfaces throughout the property. Photography is permitted only in designated areas. The mansion sits about 5 miles (roughly 8 kilometers) west of downtown San Jose with on-site parking available. A gift shop and gardens are available for exploration between tour times.

The ballroom floor inlaid with teak, maple and mahogany remains unfinished, and a seven-story tower was reportedly torn down and rebuilt 16 times. Sarah Winchester, four feet ten inches tall, had a stairway built with 44 steps rising only ten feet. Windows beside the brick fireplace carry Shakespeare quotations from Richard II and Troilus and Cressida.