Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester was born in 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut. Winchester had five sisters and one brother. Winchester was admitted to the “Young Ladies College Institute” at Yale. Sarah then got married to William Winchester on September 30, 1862. On July 12, 1866, their baby Annie Pardee Winchester was born. Five weeks later, disaster struck when the couple lost their only child due to marasmus. It was a tragic event, but their life didn’t go all downhill. In 1837 The 73 Winchester Model was released and according to (winchester mystery house) “Won that west.” In 1880, Oliver Winchester dies and leaves his already ill son, the success of the “Winchester Repeating Arms Company” (winchester mystery house) Sarah’s life continues the hectic ways, when only three months after her father-in-law passed away, her husband William passed away due to tuberculosis when he was only 43.

Now you might be thinking “What does Sarah have to do with the Winchester house?” Well, the answer lies within the house. Sarah inherited a fortune ($20 million) when her husband passed away, he was a member of the Winchester rifle family. (newspapers) Sarah was contacted by a medium that told her she must build a mansion for the spirits, whose lives were ended by the Winchester guns. The medium also said, “If she were to put a stop on the construction, she would die.” After the reading Winchester moved from Connecticut to her “Mystery House” in California. In 1888, Marion “Daisy” Merriman moved with her aunt Sarah for the next fifteen years.  

During the time of construction in 1884, the house reached seven stories with 160 rooms. The whole house was built without a plan of action. To “confuse the spirits” Winchester added secret passages, staircases to nowhere, different sized steps, and doors that led to a wall. In 1903, Daisy marries Frederick Marriott, Jr and left the “farmhouse.”  

The whole time, Sarah knew something, or someone was trying to stop her from completing the house. She was proven right in 1906, when the Great San Fransisco earthquake damaged the seven stories, while most of the fourth floor was unsavable. Then in 1910, Sarah purchased a second house in Atherton, California. Not to get away from the thought of death when she finishes the house, or the thought of her home being the one to “help confuse spirits” but to move closer to her sister Isabelle and her niece Daisy.  

Finally, the end was near. Twelve years later, Winchester passed away at her famous “Llanada Villa.” Her thirty-six years of glory and construction were finally over. Winchester’s “Llanada Villa.” sold in 1922, and Daisy inherited $3,000 from her aunt’s passing plus another $200,000 from a trust fund. This is the end of the Winchester’s story…or so they thought.  

Mayme and John Brown leased the Villa and the remaining acres. They focus on opening the house to the public. The Mansion was opened for public tours in 1923 and was called “Winchester Park.” At this time, famous people even came and visited the house. Harry Houdini even visited and called the house “The Mystery House.” (winchester mystery house) The Brown’s thought this was a good idea and in the 1930’s the house was marketed as the Winchester Mystery House and postcards were made. But by the 1940’s the water tank that came with the original house burned and it damaged the tank house too. In June of 1945, John H. Brown passes away. Six years later, Mayme Brown Dies in the December of 1951.