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Transcript

The Winchester Mystery House · Flabberghosted

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone.
0:02
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Flabberghosted.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm Meg.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Jen.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: And this week we are going to be talking about the Winchester Mystery House.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard about it?
0:12
SPEAKER_01: I have.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: So, quick question.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: What would you do if you were being haunted by dozens, if not hundreds, of ghosts?
0:23
SPEAKER_02: Go to church.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: All of our listeners, I really wish you could see the face that Jen made just now.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: So that's valid.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, Sarah Winchester, who we're gonna be talking about, she took a little bit of a different approach.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Instead of going to church like Jen would do, she bought a farmhouse outside of San Jose, California, and then spent the next 36 years renovating it to appease the ghosts.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: And they were never satisfied?
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: We'll find out.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: You know, like in Sims during Harvest Fest, you get the gnomes.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know, I I I turn that feature off because the gnomes drive me crazy.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: If you don't appease the ghosts, what you're saying.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Appease the ghosts.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Same deal.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: You gotta appease the ghost.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Gotta.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: So, a little bit of background about our girl Sarah Winchester.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: She was born in New Haven, Connecticut on June 4th, 1839.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: So, pre-Civil War, we're talking about the 1800s here.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: And fun fact about her is her family were actually pretty radical for upper class at that time.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: They were supporters of abolition, they were suffragists, and they were were animal rights activists in the 1850s.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: That is pretty crazy for that time.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:51
SPEAKER_01: And she was also really well educated.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: She had a bunch of private tutors, she spoke French, and she took music lessons.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: So she had like a very well-rounded upbringing.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Um and fun fact about her is that her neighbor, the Winchesters, she married their son.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, boy next door.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: And boy next door on September 30th, 1862, Sarah married William Winchester.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And then they moved in to his parents' house because of the Civil War.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: They couldn't build their own house at the time.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: So she they moved in with the neighbors.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: And then in 1866, she gave birth to their daughter Annie.
2:36
SPEAKER_03: Awww.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, Annie died a month later in June of 1866.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not aw.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: So sad.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: And obviously, the Winchesters they were devastated by this.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: Only child died at only a month old.
3:00
SPEAKER_01: The Civil War had just ended the year prior.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: And reportedly, Sarah, you know, she secluded herself for about a year afterwards, you know, just going through that grieving process.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Because I can't even imagine what she was going through at that time.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: A one-month-old baby passed away.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: A one-month-old baby.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately for Sarah, over the next 15 years, she's gonna lose a lot more family members.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Her dad dies in 1869, her mom dies in 1880, her father-in-law died in also in 1880, and then just months after her father-in-law, her husband gets tuberculosis and dies in March of 1881.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's just one thing after another, and she just can't catch a break.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Poor woman.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Poor woman.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: Something to know about William Winchester.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: His family owned the Winchester Repeatings Arms Company, and they produced rifles.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: So, and some of their rifles were actually used by Union soldiers during the Civil War.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like a small manufacturing company, like this is a massive company.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: And he actually, before he died, he made Sarah the executor of his will and wrote out a bunch of blank banknotes for her, totaling about$7,500 in 1881.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't get an accurate um conversion rate for what that would be in today's money, but like that's a lot of money back then.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: He also left her 777 shares of the rifle company.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: 777.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: 777.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Keep that in mind.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be something about repeating numbers later.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: Um but that 777 shares, that was almost half of the company.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: So he left half of this comments company to her, and it generated about a thousand dollars in daily royal life in 1881.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's when she was rich.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: Mama had bank, and roughly when he died, she inherited 20 million dollars in today's money, just to put it into perspective.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was a good man, he was a very good man, um, as far as we know.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Disclaimer right there.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, another thing we need to talk about for the story is the spiritualism movement of the 1800s.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: So this really kind of started in Victoria, England, and then kind of jumped over the pond to America, and it's this idea that a person's awareness persists after death and can be contacted from living.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: So, like you can trace today's like paranormal beliefs to the spiritualism movement.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: And like this all came about because you know, we have the industrial revolution happening, immigrants are moving to America, so they're bringing their practices with them.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, scientific innovations are happening, people are starting to look at the world differently, and people are just starting to question, you know, the traditional puritanical Christian beliefs that were prevalent up through American history so far, because as we know, like the Mayflower, that was the Puritans, right?
6:47
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, we had the witch trials in the 1600s.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: So this new idea of religious belief and kind of spiritual beliefs are happening around the same time.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: And another thing that's happening, this is pre-Civil War America, you know, tensions are brewing.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's this cultural feeling that something big is about to happen.
7:12
SPEAKER_03: Right.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: And as one does, you know, you start looking to whether it's your religious beliefs, your spiritual beliefs, you're looking for assurance that everything's gonna work out, right?
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Right, everything's gonna be okay.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And so spiritualism gave people a way to cope with this grief they're feeling, and like getting messages beyond the grave.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: So this is where like the idea of like seances come from.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: So seances were a huge thing, you know, contacting the dead, getting messages from beyond the grave because they might know more than we do.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And the civil war just like perpetuated this because if you think about it, prior to the civil war, it the whole grieving process happened at home with your family.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, people would have a wake, you know, you see the dead body and you get that closure, right?
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: We're talking three-quarters of a million men died.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: That's hundreds of thousands of families who don't get this grief process to go through because oftentimes the soldiers were buried where they died.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: Right.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: So they don't get this closure.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: So spiritualism and seances, it gave people a way to speak with their deceased loved ones and so they could get that closure and know that, like, okay, my son who died in battle, he's at peace now.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: Right.
8:39
SPEAKER_03: I can see why that would be something people yearn for.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's important because after Sarah's husband died, you know, she's left with all this money.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: What does she do with this money?
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Like, what does she do with her life now?
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Half her family's dead.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: So she goes to Boston and she meets with a medium and has a seance and contacts her husband, William.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: William, he's like, hey, you need to get out of Connecticut.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Go west, go to California, start a new life.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: He also gave her a warning.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: He said that she had to build a house to house all the spirits of people who have lost their lives because of the Winchester rifle.
9:33
unknown: Oh.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Or else those spirits are gonna haunt her for the rest of her life.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: Damn.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: So if you were Sarah in this moment, what would you do?
9:45
SPEAKER_03: I just got told from my dead husband that the rifles that our company supplied that I now have majority shares in, I have to appease the ghosts of those that died at the hands of those rifles, or else I'm toast.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, basically.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: Shit, I guess I'm going west.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what she did.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: She bought a modest little eight-bedroom farmhouse outside of San Jose, California.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Modest.
10:26
SPEAKER_01: Modest.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Modest eight-bedroom.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: Just a modest little thing.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: Just a little shack.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: And from the moment she bought that house, construction began.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: And it wouldn't stop until she died.
10:42
SPEAKER_03: So this is from 186, I believe.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I was like the 18, so about nearly 40 years of construction?
10:54
SPEAKER_03: 34 years?
10:55
SPEAKER_01: Close to 40 years of construction without breaks for the most part.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Which is insane.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: So within those first few months, reportedly she added a dozen rooms.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: So within a year, it goes from eight bedrooms to 20 rooms.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I had to do the math all quick in my head.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: However, a lot of people say the intention was to accommodate her sisters and their families.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: I'd want my sisters there too.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
11:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't have sisters, but like I'd want my sis, you know, you want your family to be around.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: You do, yeah.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: But here's where things get a little spooky.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: There is no plan.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: She's just throwing up rooms willy-nilly.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: Just vibes.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: Just vibes, no thoughts.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: All vibes.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: But is it really?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Because some say that Sarah.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Every night after the construction of Cruise would leave, at midnight, she would go into a specific room and have a seance and be told by the spirits what she had to do next.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: So she would go to a project manager the next morning and tell him, like, hey, this is what we're doing today.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Based off what the spirits told her the night before.
12:24
unknown: Okay.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Did you let a ghost tell you how to build your house?
12:29
SPEAKER_03: No.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: I will I mean, like, I guess I can understand her fear at the time if I put myself into like her shoes.
12:43
SPEAKER_03: But it's also kind of like I'm wondering how such prolonged contact with spirits could have negatively impacted not even just like her psyche, but like do you know who you're really talking to?
12:59
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: Who are you really talking to here?
13:02
SPEAKER_01: She did this reportedly every night for 38 years.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: That is bonkers.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: The weird thing about that seance room, it only had one entrance.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: But it had three exits.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Where did the exits go?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: So, like on the official Winchester Mystery House website, you can pay to do a 3D tour virtually of the house.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: I am not doing that.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, I'm cheap.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna do that.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: So I would assume they go to other rooms.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: But here's the spooky thing about this house.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: There's doors to nowhere.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: Some doors open up and there's just a blank wall behind it.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: There's one door on the second floor, it opens up to the garden.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Outside below, like on the lawn below the house, second floor.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: Like if you're not paying attention, you could just open this door and just fall.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: Just fall.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Because there's nothing, just catch you.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: There's also windows and balconies located inside the building instead of outside.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: So there's like you be in one room and there's a window into the next room over.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: What kind of peeping tom ghost?
14:33
SPEAKER_02: Right?
14:34
SPEAKER_02: It's ugh.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And then you also have stairs that will like go up two or three levels, but then just in.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: You have staircases that go to the roof.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: You have hallways that just dead in randomly.
14:47
SPEAKER_01: There's just like no sense of order within this chaos.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: That might have been intentional.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Because it might have been a way to confuse the ghost, because the ghost can't chase you if they can't figure out where you went.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: But if you hit a dead end, like is that your dead end that like I don't know.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: You tell me.
15:14
SPEAKER_03: I just I just can't help but keep thinking of like the door that opens up into the garden, and just like one ghost is like, I want to be able to jump from the second floor straight into the flower beds.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: That's some Scooby-Doo stuff right there.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: Just wee, just down.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Um there's even like some rooms that look like giant boxes inside of other giant so like rooms within rooms.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Roomception.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Right, like a Russian doll, but instead of dolls, it's rooms.
15:48
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Right?
15:52
SPEAKER_01: It's just weird.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: Very.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: She even requested trapdoors.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: The house had secret passages.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: There were skylights in the floors.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: There were spiderweb windows, which I'm not entirely sure what that is, but like every article I read mentioned this.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna guess it's like a very elaborate stained glass design.
16:14
SPEAKER_03: Makes sense.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Um and also, like, if you want to go back to the staircases, there was never any uniformity between the staircases.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's just how weirdly designed this house is.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: There's just it's illogical.
16:30
SPEAKER_03: And we're sure she wasn't under like the influence of anything.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Not that we know of.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Unless you count spiritual assistance as an influence.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: It's gotta be at this point.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: You remember what I said about that repeating numbers thing?
16:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: What if I told you the number 13 repeated?
16:57
SPEAKER_03: I don't like that number.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah?
17:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: What if I said that some stairs only had 13 steps?
17:14
SPEAKER_03: I feel like I need to go count my steps.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Quick pause, everyone, while Jen goes and counts how many stairs she has.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: What if I said that there were 13 hooks inside the sing-outs room for the 13 robes that Sarah reportedly wore during her contact with spirits?
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Like she wore all 13 in one night, or I think so.
17:42
SPEAKER_03: Like rotated through them or it it was never clarified.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
17:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm just gonna imagine she has all of them on at once.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Great.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: I like that image the best.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: There's one specific room that's called the Hall of Fires.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: There's a sink in this room that has 13 overflow drains.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And what if I said there was 13 bathrooms in the building?
18:18
SPEAKER_03: I mean that's kind of convenient.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when you think about how big the house is.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: I think what's even weirder is the 13th bathroom has 13 windows in it.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Which as a side note, could you imagine being in a bathroom with that many windows in it?
18:38
SPEAKER_01: No.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: No.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: I only have one in mine, and I don't like that.
18:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: I have I have well, we have like a little water closet, and that has a window in it, and then there's like another window, like in the little like vanity.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: And do you remember what I said that was a little weird about her saying I'm a couple of things?
19:02
SPEAKER_01: How it only had one door entering and three doors leaving?
19:07
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I got chills.
19:09
SPEAKER_03: Kind of weird.
19:11
SPEAKER_03: That is not a coincidence.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it needs to either.
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: And why would a person put have the number 13 recurring so much through their house that they're designing?
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Because like that's not a random number.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: That's a very intentional number.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: It is.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Unless it was the spirits telling her.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: But why 13?
19:41
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
19:45
SPEAKER_03: I don't like that.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't I just I found that really interesting.
19:53
SPEAKER_03: That is really interesting.
19:55
SPEAKER_03: I wish I knew more about like 13, like as an unlucky number and like the lore behind it.
20:03
SPEAKER_03: But I do know that it is like canonically like an unlucky number.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: You are now something funny.
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: It's my lucky number.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh shit! Oh, I forgot about that.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: So like I'm saying this whole spiel about this, and I'm like sitting here and I'm like, oh, this is my lucky number.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: I I was born on the 13th.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I know, that's why I'm laughing because I forgot about that.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's just how good of a storyteller I am.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh another thing to note about all this, she didn't hide any corners with this construction.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: She had gold and silver chandeliers hanging from her ceiling.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: She had hand-blade wood floors in elaborate patterns.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: She had dozens of custom-made stained glass windows.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: Some came from Tiffany and Co.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Jesus.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: It also had indoor plumbing and electrical work in the 1890s and 1910s.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: And that was like the up-and-coming thing to start doing then, was to have these That was the up-and-coming thing.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, she also had an air ventilation system in this house.
21:18
SPEAKER_03: In California?
21:20
SPEAKER_02: In California, in the 18 early 1900s.
21:24
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
21:27
SPEAKER_01: So like she was not sparing anything when it came to money.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: Of course, you know, she had 20 million to spare, so like, why not?
21:37
SPEAKER_03: Right.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: I know that contractor just looked at the day and was like, all right.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: I'm getting paid for this, so might as well.
21:45
SPEAKER_03: He would just give the lady what she wants.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm bad at work.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, listen, this lady, she tips well.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: We'll give her what she wants.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: Um and another fact that I found kind of odd.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: But doesn't really relate to like spookiness.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Was she insisted all the wood be made used for construction was to be redwood, but she didn't like the look of it, so it was all painted.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: Again, it's not relevant, but kind of interesting.
22:17
SPEAKER_03: Painted redwood.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: Alright.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: So some say that the weird layout of this house is was to confuse the spirits.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: So like only one of those 13 bathrooms worked.
22:33
SPEAKER_01: The rest were decoys for any spirits that wanted to haunt the plumbing.
22:38
SPEAKER_03: Well, there goes my argument about it being convenient.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: And then it's also said she slept in a different room every single night, so nobody could track her movements, you know?
22:49
SPEAKER_01: So those bedrooms weren't for family.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: They were for her.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So she could escape the ghosts and sleep in peace.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And she also used all those secret passages to like, you know, sneak past the ghosts.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: Never let them know your next move.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: So up until 1906, this eight-bedroom farmhouse, it is now seven stories tall.
23:22
SPEAKER_03: Seven.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Again, this we're talking turn of the night, 20th century here.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: This is a massive building.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: But all that changed in 1906 when an earthquake struck San Francisco.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: You might have heard of this one.
23:41
SPEAKER_03: I think I am familiar.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: So it was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit at 5.12 in the morning on April 18th, 1906.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: So, for context of how destructive this was, upwards of 3,000 people died as a result of this earthquake.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: And 80% of San Francisco was destroyed in either the earthquake itself or in all the fires that broke out.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: So when this earthquake struck, it knocked down this seven-story observation tower that she had built.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: It also destroyed the top three floors of the building.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: That didn't stop her though.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: Construction continued until 1922.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: And the only reason construction stopped was because she died.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: How did she pass?
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't find any information on that.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: But you gotta think.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: It very well could have been natural causes.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be insensitive here, but maybe the ghost got her.
25:01
unknown: I don't know.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Or at least I didn't find a cause of death.
25:05
SPEAKER_01: So when Sarah died in 1922, she left everything in her estate to her niece Marion.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: Weirdly enough, the house was never mentioned in the will directly, but Marion still assumed control.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: But you know, as one dies, she is like, I don't really want this house.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: So she cleared it out, kept the possession she wanted, and then sold off the rest, which is pretty standard practice.
25:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Umsurprisingly, appraisers toured the house and they said this thing is worthless because of the illogical design, the earthquake damage, and the long construction period.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: So she didn't have, you know, it's not worth a much.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: So it was eventually sold to an investor for a measly$135,000.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: I did the math, that's$2.7 million in today's money.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Measly.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Pocket change.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: Five months later, those investors opened up the house to the public as a tourist attraction.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Which you can actually still tour today.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think the craziest part is they're still finding new rooms to this day.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: In 2016, they found a secret, and it wasn't like a small room, it had a pump organ in there, and like a sewing machine, and then all these paintings and stuff.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: That's insane.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: So a couple quick stats about this house.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Today it is four floors.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: There is 160 rooms, estimated, because there might be some we don't know about.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Roughly 2,000 doors, roughly 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, but only 17 chimneys.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know where some of those fireplaces are going.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: 40 total staircases, 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, 3 elevators, and 2 basements.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Giving us a grand total of 24,000 square feet.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: She did all that in 38 years.
27:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know how to react.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: Those are just insane numbers.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: They really are.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Not like body.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for clarifying.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they hear this music coming from empty ballrooms.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: There's knocking on windows and doors.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: You have the classic, you know, ear spots that aren't due to the ventilation system.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Cabinet doors opening, drawers opening on their own, door handles twisting open on their own.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: And even in the basement, which one?
28:27
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: They staff has named an apparition, Clyde.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: And Clyde is seen to be pushing a wheelbarrow around.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: And some say he is actually one of the construction workers from the 1800s.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: It sounds like still working to this day.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: Clyde.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Hmm, Clyde.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: I would be doing a disservice to our girl Sarah if I left the story there.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Because that number 13 that popped up earlier, all of those features were added after she died.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Because a construction worker had come forward in the 1920s and said, hey, none of this was there when Sarah was alive.
29:18
SPEAKER_02: So it was added for the tourist attraction.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: Wait, which part?
29:26
SPEAKER_02: The 13, the number 13.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: And people who knew Sarah personally described her as intelligent, finance savvy, and sharp-witted, not superstitious at all.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And maybe an explanation for the weird layout of the house is when she and William were building their house in Connecticut, they actually became fascinated with architecture.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: So that's probably why the house is so weird.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: It was probably just her, you know, having a lot of disposable income.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: And workers even said she would change her mind because she wanted a different layout.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And also some of those staircases to nowhere, they might have led to the upper floors that she never repaired after the 1906 earthquake.
30:18
SPEAKER_04: Makes sense.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: And same with the doors to nowhere and the weird short, narrow staircases.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Sarah had arthritis in her later years.
30:27
SPEAKER_04: Gotcha.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't explain everything.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: You know.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: But I have to say that, I have to give her that credit where it's due.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: But maybe the spirits that were haunting her are still there.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that's up for you to decide.
30:44
SPEAKER_04: If you enjoyed this podcast and you would like to hear more, you can follow us on Instagram at Flabberghosted Podcast, or you can email us at flabbergostedpodcast at gmail.com.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: And we'll catch you next time.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Stay spooky, y'all.