The "Door to Nowhere" on the Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California is a monument to one woman’s obsession with avoiding death. Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester gun fortune, had her carpenters working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year adding to her huge mansion. All of this was because her child, Annie, died in 1866 and her husband, William, died 15 years later of tuberculosis. Greif stricken, and sitting on a fortune estimated at $20,000,000.00, she consulted a spiritualist, like any normal, sane person would do.
The spiritualist, a medium from Boston, convinced her that her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits of American Indians, killed by the Winchester rifles her husband’s family had invented. Since her daughter and husband had already been taken, naturally the medium convinced Sarah that she would be next. The only way to avoid this horrible fate was to move west and begin construction on a great house. This would appease the “spirits” and as long as construction continued on the house, Sarah would be safe.
Construction on the house continued for 38 years, until Sarah’s death in 1922. What was left is a massive mansion containing 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms and 6 kitchens.
Exploring this weird, wonderful place is a great way to spend an afternoon, or even longer.
Winchester Mystery House
Further reading:
The Wren's Nest - Joel Chandler Harris' Home
Most people today have heard of Splash Mountain at the Disney parks and some of those people realize the story behind the ride is from a movie called Song of the South. Still fewer people know the origin of that story, Uncle Remus. Joel Chandler Harris wrote the Uncle Remus stories from stories he heard as a child, passed down from slaves. It was a subset of those tales told by slaves that eventually became the story inside Splash Mountain.
Ironically, the movie derived from old slave stories, Song of the South, hasn’t been released in the United States for many years because, rumor has it, Disney is afraid the movie will offend blacks. If you’ve seen the movie, you know the blacks in the movie are the only ones with their heads on straight and it’s the white people who should be offended, but that has nothing to do with the point of this post and I digress.
So much for the insightful history lesson. On to the attraction!
The Wren’s Nest is Harris’ restored home is Atlanta Georgia. Built in 1870, the home was named in 1900 after a pair of wrens nested in Harris’ mailbox that spring. He quickly installed a second mailbox so as not to disturb the nesting pair. Visitors can see his house, buy copies of his books (in either their original form or an easier to read, modern form) and hear the stories of Br’er Rabbit retold by professional storytellers.
If you spend a day or two in Atlanta, I’d recommend dedicating an hour or two to this attraction.
The Wren’s Nest
Bishop's Palace, Galveston, Texas
The Bishop’s Palace is a beautiful stone mansion built on Galveston Island, Texas, in 1892 for a lawyer/railroad magnate named Colonel Walter Gresham. It was designed by Nicholas Clayton and construction started in 1887. Later, the Catholic Church purchased it for use as a Bishop’s residence, hence the name. It is considered one of the top 14 representatives of Victorian homes in the United States.
One of the most interesting details inside the house is the collection of unique, award winning fireplace mantels. It also has details made of rare wood and intricate detail throughout. Of all the houses I’ve visited over the years, across the country, the Bishop’s Palace is the most interesting.
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