This ridiculous yet fascinating Victorian mansion is filled with 160 mostly non-utilitarian rooms with dead-end hallways and a staircase that runs up to a ceiling. The standard hour-long guided mansion tour covers the basics, while a newer "Explore More" tour brings guests around the gardens and into unfinished rooms that were off-limits for decades.
Sarah Winchester – heir to the Winchester-rifle fortune – spent 38 years constructing this mammoth white elephant. No expense was spared in the construction, the extreme results of which sprawl over 4 acres. One theory is that Sarah continued expanding the house because the spirits of the people killed by Winchester rifles told her to.
The house is west of central San Jose and just north of I-280, incongruously across the street from the upscale Santana Row.
