New room found at San Jose's Winchester Mystery House

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New room found at San Jose's Winchester Mystery House
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The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif. is a California state landmark.




The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, Calif. is a California state landmark. (KGO-TV)

[Sandra]

Bay City News
Monday, October 10, 2016 10:09AM
SAN JOSE, Calif. --
A new room has been discovered and is open to the public at San Jose's Winchester Mystery House, a Victorian mansion that was home to a widow of the Winchester rifle fortune.

The home's preservation team recently opened the new room, which is an attic space that has been boarded up since Sarah Winchester died in 1922.

Winchester boarded up the room after the 1906 earthquake because she was trapped in the room and she thought evil spirits were responsible for the quake.

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The preservation team found numerous items in the room, including a pump organ, Victorian couch, dress form, sewing machine and paintings.

The new room means 161 rooms have been found in the mansion that is a California state landmark, San Jose landmark and is listed on the National Archives of Historic Places.

The house has 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 40 staircases, 13 bathrooms, and nine kitchens.

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http://abc7news.com/news/new-room-found-at-san-joses-winchester-mystery-house/1548352/

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An exterior view of the Winchester Mystery House. Image Credit: Public Domain
The mysterious Victorian mansion has remained a place of intrigue since Sarah Winchester's death in 1922.
One of San Jose's most popular tourist attractions, the enigmatic mansion has 161 rooms, 40 staircases ( some of which leading to nowhere ), 10,000 windows and 2,000 doors.

Constructed in 1884 and owned by Sarah Winchester - the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester - the building is said to be haunted by the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles.

Its interior is as lavish as it is bizarre, with a peculiar room layout, doors leading to solid walls, windows on the walls of inside rooms, a large bell which is rung every Friday 13th and multiple 'decoy' rooms that Winchester used in an effort to fool the spirits she believed resided there.

Now the home's preservation team has announced that yet another room has been discovered within its walls - this time an attic space that had remained inaccessible since 1906.

Items found inside included a sewing machine, a pump organ and a set of paintings.

The story goes that Winchester had become trapped in there during an earthquake and, believing evil spirits to be responsible, ordered the room to be permanently boarded up afterwards.