Mystery House

Life had been good for Sarah Pardee. Born in the late 1830’s in New Haven Connecticut, she had been raised by a well-to-do family and was well liked by her classmates and peers throughout her upbringing. She was a charming and intelligent girl, playing several instruments and fluent in multiple languages.

In 1862 everything seemed to be coming together for Sarah. She fell in love and married the only heir of a local businessman. She moved into a beautiful brownstone home. She had her first child. Hers was a life to be envied. Then it all came apart.

Her daughter died in infancy. She had no other children; and Sarah was driven near to insanity by the loss. Only a few years later, her husband William fell ill with tuberculosis and dies in 1881. She received 50% ownership of the family business, and an award of $20 million, but it served little comfort to Sarah. Distraught to the brink of her capacity. Thinking her family was cursed, she visited Boston to seek help from an old friend believed to have psychic abilities.

The psychic confirmed her suspicions and informed her that she was indeed cursed. She was being haunted. Sarah Winchester was being tormented by the spirits of all those killed on the battlefield by the product her family so proudly produced – the Winchester rifle.

The psychic suggested Sarah move far away and build herself a new house. The key to that new house, the psychic informed her, is that it stay in a perpetual state of construction. Never being completed entirely. If Sarah were to complete the house, it would leave her vulnerable again to the tormentings of the spirits.

Frightened, distressed, and still grieving the loss of her family, Sarah believed every word. Three years later she moved across the country to a rural area of California known as San Jose. She purchased an 8-room farmhouse on 160 acres, and shortly after, a work crew got busy on a project which would ultimately last over 40 years.

As construction progressed, more and more of Sarah’s superstitions surfaced. The house incorporated the number 13 all over, stairways led to the ceiling, doors were built with walls behind them, and so on. She never slept in the same room two nights in a row, and she began the habit of choosing a new room each night to spend the early hours of the morning communicating with the spirits.

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed the upper the floors of the house. Sarah herself had to be rescue after the roof of the room she was sleeping in collapsed. She deemed this to be a result of the vengeful spirits gaining access to her once more and a result closed down the entire front half of the house to keep it even more incomplete.

Sarah died in 1922. When the construction team, which had been with her for 40 years, heard the news, the building immediately ceased. Rooms were left unfinished, walls half complete, and told and supplies strewn about the floor.

Over the course of time the 160 acres of farmland around the house, turned into upscale suburbs housing the workers of the burgeoning tech industry. The house however remained and became something of a tourist attraction. Its 160 rooms are now open to visitors who wish to tour the Winchester Mystery House.

One of the least enjoyable parts of my job, is that every so often clients pass away. My job in those moments is to help their remaining loved ones pick up the pieces and move on. Financially at least. The very first bit of advice I ever give them is this.

When you are in a position where you are still processing something like a death, or any of the life changes that can cause you to enter a heightened emotional state, slow down. Take all the time you need to breathe, think, grieve, and process. And while all that is going on, make as few decisions as possible.

At some point, you will need to decide what to do with your parent’s old house, but not today. Eventually you will need to transfer your husband’s retirement account into your name, but not today. Eventually you will want to change your health insurance after going through a divorce, but not today. There are a few decisions that will likely need to be made before you really feel ready. And you can handle those. But if it can wait, let it wait.

Emotions are a powerful thing, and they can cloud your judgement to the point of crippling you. Sarah Winchester was racked with grief and fear. She would have done well to take a breath and hit the pause button. She instead pushed forward and made decisions that dramatically altered the course of her life, and took her from being the likable girl from a nice neighborhood, to someone who spent 40 years suffering from an untreated mental illness.