Winchester Mystery House

Disney rejected the idea because he didn't want a rundown-looking building in his park.

He visited the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, and was captivated by the massive mansion with its stairs to nowhere, doors that open to walls and holes, and elevators.

Anderson envisioned stories from the mansion, including tales of a ghostly sea captain who killed his bride and then hanged himself, a mansion home to an unfortunate family, and a ghostly wedding party with well-known Disney villains and spooks.

In 1961, Handbills announcing a 1963 opening of the Haunted Mansion were given out at Disneyland's main entrance, and construction began a year later.

Today, we are taking a trip to San Jose, California, to visit the ultimate monument to wealth.

debilitating guilt, and absolute architecture anarchy, the Winchester Mystery House.

Now, if you've ever tried to do DIY home renovations and almost lost your mind over an unlevel shelf, I need you to hold my beer.

Imagine doing home renovations continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 38 bloody years.

Because a house that's been quietly weird for decades needs an origin story.

And the best origin story you can give a house of this size is a curse.

This is the moment the Winchester Mystery House is born.

Not the house, the brand.

They might have in their mind that it's, I don't know, a dilapidated roadside attraction or a haunted house.

That's Walter Magnuson, the executive director of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose.

It's been a tourist attraction since 1923.

The house has 160 rooms, and its maze-like design has attracted both architectural acclaim and paranormal investigations.

The fixtures and the furnishings and the types of wood.

So there's so much to see and I think a lot of guests don't fully expect that.

But at the same time, Walter doesn't make any apologies for the supernatural reputation of the Winchester Mystery House.

And he says that in museum circles, he often doesn't feel welcome.

Well, I have one more, and then I have the places that I thought we would talk about.

Okay, so the Winchester Mystery House.

It's in San Jose, California.

And

It helped to inspire supernatural fiction that Stephen King wrote his novel based on it.

But it is also inspired by other mean it has inspired other authors as well which is really cool

no i love that um you can tell uh i love like dark weird history because i also the girls at morbid they did an excellent episode on the winchester mystery house that tells you like so

much about it it's crazy So, I...

Rooms that have no windows.

It's almost like the, you ever heard of the Winchester Mystery House? No.

It's in San Jose, yeah.

It's where like a woman built never-endingly to nothing.

it.

You know, I think it was two weeks ago because last week I went to Winchester Mystery House the week before we went to Phantom.

So you're right.

It was two weeks.

So they've got that asymmetrical, you know, different spires, bay windows.

They're usually bold or quirky colors, pastels.

The Winchester Mystery House is an example of one of them.

And they also have those spindly front porches, like carved inserts.

Oh.

It's like the Winchester Mansion in some ways.

I love that.

Just keep going.