![]() ![]() I wanted to open with that little story because it perfectly encapsulates what we're going to do today. The mystery of the windows was conclusively solved, and one bit of Winchester misinformation was corrected. The envelope had been opened and was empty, but its postmark from July, 1894 was still there. In 2019, Winchester staff was warming to this identification, when quite fortuitously, some renovators opened up a wall in the house - something rarely done - and what should come tumbling out but an envelope from Mallon's glass company, the Pacific American Decorative Company in San Francisco. They found more close matches with some known Mallon windows in great mansions throughout California. Working with caretakers and historians at at least two other notable homes with similar glass windows, one in Canada and another in Oakland, CA., researchers in recent years zeroed in on John Mallon, a great San Francisco glass artist of the late 19th century. Architectural historians, however, have never bought that, because they are nothing like anything Tiffany ever produced. Tour guides and house legend will tell you they were made by Tiffany & Co. To start with, let's take one of the less important bits of misinformation about the house, having to do with the fact that many of its literal thousands of windows are elaborately stained glass. In today's episode, I'm going to make the point (which has been ably made before) that virtually everything you might know about the Winchester Mystery House is wrong but more importantly, that a much more valuable and uplifting true story is being tragically obscured and lost. This, anyway, is the legend as you may have heard it. It is the result of a tragic obsession and devotion to the supernatural combined with endless money. As a result, the whole house is a crazy jumble of doors and windows and corridors and stairways to nowhere, twisted passages, and hidden chambers. ![]() ![]() She believed that she must build every day - which went on for 38 years around the clock - for the moment she stopped building, she would die. She held nightly séances in a special room, advising her on what to build next. The legend is that Sarah built it on the advice of a psychic in order to escape the tormented spirits of all those killed by Winchester rifles. It has approximately 24,000 square feet, seven stories, hundreds of rooms, thousands of doors, and scores of stairways and fireplaces. It was built by Sarah Winchester, widow and heiress of the Winchester rifle fortune, at the turn of the 20th century. In the center of the great California metropolitan area of San Jose sits an enormous tourist attraction, a gigantic Victorian home on the National Register of Historic Places. ![]()
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