Meeting Sean

My first contact wtih Sean was a couple of days ago when he called, chuckling at my answering machine message, to announce his arrival and arrange a day to meet. I asked him if he'd mind picking me up before they went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose as I'd never been there. They showed up around 11 a.m. in their hire car. I thought it was hilarious because I was noticing his British accent - I suppose I must be settling in here...!

Conversation didn't really dry up all day - we'd been emailing since, we established, about last November. They came in in time to see my cat disappear under the armchair, and refuse to come out - we had a chuckle about that. It also ensued that he'd forgotten to bring my Terry Pratchett books, so a later ride to Nob Hill in San Francisco was schemed amid groans from Joyce... I demo'ed my bike and then it was off we went.

The house

The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose was owned in the last century by the daughter and heiress of the Winchester rifle company. We sorted out our tickets and tours - Sean treated me - and then slipped across the road to the ToGos sandwich shop for vast sandwiches. This was Joyce's second visit to the U.S.A. and she said that she was feeling guilty because she could never finish a whole meal - even after the sandwich she was stuffed. I said this wasn't a problem - I'd been living here a whole year and it was like that for me. Sean said that he'd crammed in Texan meals when he was there until he realised that he wasn't expected to eat them all - but had to lose pounds afterwards...!

Following munchies we went into the central courtyard where there were pretty trees - I'd forgotten how nice trees were because it had been a while since I sat under any... The tour guide met us and took us all in and immediately started his narrative. The guy evidently knew a pile of facts, and his style was pretty humorous and alive. He had a lot of information to give and organised it very well.

Now, the story of the house. It's crazy. I think the world needs more Mrs Winchesters, more eccentrics like her... She lost her baby daughter and husband within a short space of time and thus decided to spend most of her time in mourning. She went to see a medium to ask "Why me?" and was told that the spirits of all the people killed by Winchester guns were out to get revenge, but if she found a house in the West and never once stopped building, she would confuse the spirits and could live a long time, perhaps forever. As it happened, she lived until she was 83, dying in the early 20th century.

Mrs Winchester would take a seance every night and come back with the next set of plans for her builders. We even saw the seance room, carefully barricaded against spies and interruptions... The building went on every day for a few decades, stopping only twice: for the 1906 earthquake, where Mrs Winchester was trapped in the house and later decided that the ghosts were mad so she shut off some 30 rooms of the house henceforth; and, again, when she died (because nobody was going to pay the builders any more). She was a multi-millionairess and paid well, and introduced many innovations to the house which, for the time period, were rather advanced. She was a boss who made all the mod cons available, but for whom it was also very difficult to work - often raising her builders at ungodly hours to make them build new things, or having them rebuild things, or what-not.

The mansion itself has 160 rooms, and our tour took us through about 130 of them - the guide pointed out that, if we were tired, it was because we had just walked over a mile. Mrs Winchester's favourite number was 13(!) and everywhere you would see the number repeated. There were 13 bathrooms, and windows with 13 panels, drain holes in the shape of a daisy with 13 holes, etc etc. She had a liking for Tiffany stained glass, which is stunning, but a habit of placing them in the wrong place so they would never get any light. She bought windows and supplies and would buy a whole bolt of any material that she liked; she had chronic arthritis and created 'easy rider' steps which are tiny little steps in a zig-zag formation to get up places. At this point I announced that this was "a silly place" ;-) I went round most of it with a big grin on my face because it was so bizarre. She was a little over 4' tall so there were even some doors made just for her use. Reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

There were doors that led nowhere or to drops; closet doors which opened onto walls or which simply opened into another room. One door opened over a kitchen sink. Stairs that went nowhere. It was just totally insane.

Because Mrs Winchester was in mourning, the grand ballroom and unfinished ballroom were never used nor even planned to be used. The chandelier had thirteen candles the first time it was lit. The safe, which on her death was opened, contained not jewels, but a lock of hair and the obituaries of her daughter and husband.

I don't think I've enjoyed a stately home so much in my life - it was wonderful. After the tour, which sneakily opens you up onto the gift shop, we went back to the courtyard to join the "behind the scenes" tour after a break and drink.

The inside story

The estate was a working farm so there were fruit dehydrators to see and more. The foreman got his own house on site. The farm would produce tonnes of fruit every year. There was a plumber's shop, a car wash - carefully designed with floors which sloped down to the drain in the centre - to keep Mrs Winchester's three cars clean (one of which was a French Renault - pronounced Rennolt by our dear guide). We got to walk down in the basement, hence the hard hats to avoid being bashed by overhead pipes. Despite bad insulation, the coal heaters down there passed heat up through the ceiling and was used to heat water, including the one shower in the house which was designed to fit Mrs Winchester and no other. The gardens were beautiful, with fountains, many trees and ferns and statues. Despite the guide, the tour was very interesting ;-)

We finished off our day, wondering at the place, by taking that flying visit to San Francisco and thence to Mountain View where I treated my visitors to a giant plate of nachos and good beer in the Tied House microbrewery and restaurant - yummy. It was a fine day and, though the cost is not exactly minimal, you get a good day out of it and it's fun. It's one of the California landmarks (they are all numbered, and for perspective, one of them is the garage in which Hewlett Packard was started in Palo Alto!) - and also a national landmark. Fun, fun, fun.