Winchester House

Sarah Winchester came to the Santa Clara Valley in 1886 after losing her infant daughter, Annie, and then her husband, William Wirt Winchester, son of the rifle maker. She spent the next three and a half decades enlarging a farmhouse into a sprawling Victorian that at its peak stood seven storeys high. The 1906 earthquake brought down the tower and upper floors; she had damaged sections sealed off rather than rebuilt, which accounts for many of the staircases and doors that now lead nowhere. The famous story that a medium told her to build without stopping to appease the ghosts of everyone killed by Winchester rifles is legend: her biographer found letters in which she mentions halting construction for long periods. She died in the house in September 1922, and it opened to the public the following spring. Staff and visitors have long reported cold spots, apparitions, the impression of someone lying in Sarah's bed, and voices and laughter in empty rooms. Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej visited the house for Ghost Files, which followed with a debrief episode in 2026.