7. The Sarah Winchester House in San Jose, California
Sarah Winchester was the wife of William Wirt Winchester, who made a fortune in the firearms business, most famously from the Winchester repeating rifle. The gun magnate died of tuberculosis in 1881, and his widow received over $20 million from his estate ($500 million today) as well as half ownership of her husband’s company, which guaranteed her an income of the equivalent of $25,000 per day. According to legend she was told by a medium to leave the family home in New Haven, Connecticut, and build a home for the spirits of those who had been killed with Winchester firearms. Whether true, or whether Sarah was suffering from depression (she had recently lost an infant daughter as well as her husband) she went to San Jose and began building what is arguably the strangest house ever constructed.
Workers were hired so that construction continued around the clock, without blueprints or architectural plans. Staircases end at ceilings. Doors open revealing a wall on the other side. Windows open into passageways. The house reached the height of seven stories before construction ended. The house contains over 160 rooms, seventeen chimneys, and forty-seven fireplaces. It is claimed to be haunted by the ghosts of victims of Winchester rifles, a belief that Sarah herself espoused. As recently as 2016 a previously unknown room was found in the mansion. A Tiffany window, designed to create a rainbow on the opposite wall when struck by light, was installed in an interior room where no natural light could reach it. Ghost hunters and paranormal specialists have claimed to have proof the house is haunted, but even if it isn’t occupied by ghosts it is a bizarre and unsettling building.