The UnXplained: Secrets of The Winchester Mystery House (Season 1) | History

WILLIAM SHATNER: In San Jose, California, stands one of the largest and most bizarre private residences in the United States. Known as the Winchester Mystery House, this 24,000 square foot Victorian-style mansion contains an astonishing 160 rooms, 17 chimneys, 47 fireplaces, two basements, three elevators, and more than 10,000 panes of glass-- and those are just the ones we know about. But why? WALTER MAGNUSON: Well, the Winchester Mystery House is a very special place. It was built with no master plan, but there are a lot of architectural oddities that remain a mystery as to why they're here. STEVE BURROWS: Most buildings start with some drawings, some blueprints, some documents that say, this is what it's going to look like when it was finished. That building looks like they made it up as they went. JANAN BOEHME: There are doors that open to 12-foot drops outside. There's doors that, you step through them, you'll land in a kitchen sink on the first floor. It's almost like an Escher picture in some ways. WILLIAM SHATNER: The mastermind behind this architectural jigsaw puzzle was Sarah Winchester, the widow of the man who manufactured the Winchester repeating rifle. It was famously known as the "Gun That Won the West" because it could kill more people faster than any gun previously invented. JANAN BOEHME: The Winchester rifle was special because it could fire up to 15 rounds without being reloaded, which was very different from most of the smoothbores used in the Civil War scene, which were-- you loaded it, fired one shot, and that was it. So you could imagine the advantage that you would have being able to shoot round after round after round without reloading. WILLIAM SHATNER: When Sarah's husband died in 1981, she became the heir to his massive fortune. Three years later, she began construction on a mansion that would take 38 years to complete. She just added things on as she had a great idea. So everybody had to listen and say, oh, OK, you want a large ballroom up there? And then, they'd figure it out as they went. DAVID WHITEHEAD: Even to this day, they're still finding new rooms and new features to this house. Was Sarah just working off of her whims, was she just an eccentric, crazy lady, or is there some other unknown explanation that we have yet to understand? What if it was built as a giant puzzle, one that protects a vast treasure that still lies hidden behind one of the house's hundreds of walls? Something to ponder.

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 388,004

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Id: Y9L8OUgAgrI

Length: 3min 17sec (197 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019