Snagged from the Winchester website
In 1884, a wealthy widow named Sarah L. Winchester began a construction project of such magnitude that it was to occupy the lives of carpenters and craftsmen until her death thirty-eight years later. The Victorian mansion, designed and built by the Winchester Rifle heiress, is filled with so many unexplained oddities, that it has come to be known as the Winchester Mystery House.
Sarah Winchester built a home that is an architectural marvel. Unlike most homes of its era, this 160-room Victorian mansion had modern heating and sewer systems, gas lights that operated by pressing a button, three working elevators, and 47 fireplaces. From rambling roofs and exquisite hand inlaid parquet floors to the gold and silver chandeliers and Tiffany art glass windows, you will be impressed by the staggering amount of creativity, energy, and expense poured into each and every detail.
These stairs that lead to the ceiling are just one of the many
bizarre features that Mrs. Winchester designed and had built.
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This story & all the pics have been snagged from the blog page of Stephen <cant find a Last name> the guy who has done reseach on this house.
More on the story
Pictured above are Mrs. Winchester's carpenters. They were well-compensated professionals who worked hard to meet Mrs. Winchester's strange but exacting standards. They lived, worked, and in some cases raised families on the estate. At least one of them may still be there.
During most of the mansion's history the main basement has been closed off. It wasn't until a few years ago that a second tour was added to include the basement. This meant clearing about 80 years of accumulated debris and dust. Since tours guides have some downtime between tours, they were given the job of sweeping up. It took several months, and during that time people kept running into someone they didn't know. He wore overalls, and had a wheelbarrow, and looked like he might be part of the restoration crew.
One of the guides, expecting to be alone in the basement that day, asked his manager who the other person doing the cleaning was. The manager was confused because no one else was scheduled to do any work in the basement. She asked what the other person looked like. The tour guide described him as wearing overalls and having a mustache, and he was pushing a wheelbarrow.
A few weeks later a different guide asked the same question. 'Who is that guy in the basement?'
The manager was curious, and asked what he looked like. The tour guide described him. He had a mustache. He wore overalls. He was pushing a wheelbarrow. This was very strange, no one was scheduled to be in the basement.
The tour opened to the public shortly thereafter. One afternoon in the basement, a guest asked her guide who the man with the wheelbarrow was. What man, he replied. No one was supposed to be in the basement. After the tour, he asked the manager who might have been in the basement with a wheelbarrow. No one, what did he look like? Well, he had a mustache, and wore overalls....
People kept seeing the man with the wheelbarrow. One day, a guest pointed to the picture of the carpenters and said to her guide, 'I saw that man in the basement. He had a wheelbarrow.' The guide told the manager what the guest had said.
Out of curiosity, the manager showed the photo to one of the guides. The guide was surprised. 'That's him.' The manager brought in the other guide. Without being asked, the guide pointed to the man on the far right side of the photo. 'That's the man with the wheelbarrow.'
People ask me if the house is haunted. I tell them that I don't know, but some of Mrs. Winchester's employees were very loyal.
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Winchester Mystery House Blogger Talks
Interview by Jaunted.com
10/28/2005 at 5:04 PM
Jaunted
With the Halloween countdown begun, it seemed like a good time to talk a bit with Stephen, whose Mystery House blog is full of annotated pictures of the bizarre Winchester Mystery house, built by the spook-obsessed heir of the Winchester rifle fortune. Stephen took the photos while working as a guide a couple years ago -- many are of rooms and details you can't see on any normal tour.
Jaunted: Had you seen [much of the house] before you'd worked there? Was working on the "inside" different that you thought it would be?
Stephen: I'd never even visited it before I worked there. I'd read about it, and I may have seen some things on TV. I intentionally put off visiting the inside of the house until after I was hired, so my first time in the mansion was during orientation. I think I was most surprised by how "friendly" the house really seemed, it's very open in most places, and sort of cheerful. I mean, it has 10,000 windows.
Jaunted: What were the people you worked with like? I think you mentioned that there were some stories about weird happenings there . . .
Stephen: There are really several types of people that work there. There are the seasonal employees that work there in the summer, mostly high school and college kids ( a lot of drama students). Then there's the lifers, people that started in high school as guides and kept working there. And there are front office business and marketing types. By far, the most interesting group is the restoration crew. They really have a good handle on the mansion and put a lot of work into restoring it in a historically accurate way. I like to think of them as a continuation of he work the original carpenters did. They're very matter-of-fact about things, and I mention them because one of them had probably the most compelling story about a weird experience in modern years . . . . He swears he ran into a spirit on the 'Original Back Porch Steps' one morning. He's always embarrassed to tell the story, but documentary crews love to hear him tell it . . . . I think it's most compelling because he doesn't want it to be true.
We also asked him if anyone on staff was the sort of person looking to see ghosts and spooks.
Stephen: Yes, there are usually a few people that feel they commune with the spirits, but generally I think employees there become somewhat attached to Mrs. Winchester and very protective of the way she's perceived. I know that I did. The management encourages that too, and ghost stories aren't really part of the normal tour the way they may have been in past years. If spirits are mentioned, it's usually in the context of Mrs. Winchester.
Stephen: The one exception is the basement ghost
Jaunted: What's that?
Stephen: For guests that take the 'Behind-the-Scenes' tour, which is a relatively new tour that concentrates on some places that the normal tour can't really get to, it's okay to talk about something a few tour guides and a guest reported in the basement. Two guides and a guest each reported seeing a workman with a wheelbarrow in the basement, on separate occasions. They all pointed out the same gentleman in an old photograph of Mrs. Winchester's carpentry crew. He looks pretty happy in the photo, and I like to think that if there's a spirit in the house, then it's a friendly hard-working spirit.
Jaunted: Especially if he can help put up shelves or something.
Stephen: Yes, exactly. Or clean the basement. It takes a long time to clean the basement.
Jaunted: In addition to the natural [draw] of seeing something that few people are going to see, even if they visit, I think a major attraction of your blog is just to see how many ornate details there are everywhere. What are yr. favorite places, either public or non-public?
Stephen: I really love the grand ballroom. Mrs. Winchester was a musician, and I get the feeling that she spent a lot of her time there. It also has one of the best clues into her personality, two stained glass windows bearing quotes from Shakespeare. One is from Troilus and Cressida "Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts," and is said by Ulysses about Cressida and her nature as a tease. The other is "These same thoughts people this little world" from Richard the II, which Richard speaks while he is in prison.
Basically his whole world has been reduced to his own thoughts because of his isolation. I think those quotes tell us a lot about Mrs. Winchester. She was a society darling in her youth in Connecticut, but ultimately became very isolated (though not as isolated as [some] people believe).
Jaunted: Gotcha. I love what you had to say about the ballroom -- maybe she's due for a good biography. Seems like so much of her life is sketchy, though.
Stephen: Yeah, we don't really even know when she was born. Her birth certificate is lost. 1839 or 1840. I think there's a movie in their somewhere, though I feel like it would be better focused on the people around her. There was a whole community there on the estate, and most of what we do know came from interviews with people that worked for her, or their children.
Jaunted: Could be a little like that Altman movie from a couple years back [Gosford Park]
Stephen: Definitely, as directed by Tim Burton.
Thanks for talking with us, Stephen!
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There are 88 more pics That I am putting in the Pics thread Ill post 10 at a time I posted therm all here
https://thehauntedforum.forummotion.com/Pictures-and-Media-f10/Winchester-Mystery-house-Pics-1-t83.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whew im tired LOL Kodie I got a buch more smilies I had friends come thru for me. Ill try to get them posted tomorrow. As well as My Haunted house pix I took with my own camera. GTG prime time YV begins in 20 min & mom gets mad if im running around
Subject: The Winchester Mystery House 
Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:45 am
Pretty interesting but I think I would be white as a ghost if I actually saw a spook however this does sound like the wheelbarrow person was friendly and harmless. 
