Her father-in-law Oliver Winchester, manufacturer of the famous repeater rifle, died in 1880, and her husband, Will, also in the family gun business, died a year later. Winchester had inherited a vast fortune off of guns. In this provocative and deeply-researched work of narrative history, Haag fundamentally revises the history of arms in America, and in so doing explodes the clichés that have created and sustained our lethal gun culture. “I think it’s absolutely phenomenal that they’ve opened up a new tour so that way we can explore more of the home that I’ve always wanted to see.”Īnd maybe get a chance to dance with a ghost.The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture “I absolutely adore any nook and cranny of this house that I can get myself into,” she said.
Kryis Lindseth-Reed, who runs the travel website Haunted Honeymoon with her husband, is already an annual pass holder at the Winchester Mystery House, but she was impressed with what she saw Thursday. Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, who was recently at the house to film scenes for the movie, was fascinated by everything she saw, said Magnuson, the general manager.īut the new tour - offered only as a package with the regular 110-room Mansion Tour for a total 2½-hour experience - may be most valuable to those who think they already know all the house’s secrets. The Explore More tour is opening just as interest in the Winchester Mystery House is on the rise, no doubt spurred in part by the thriller “Winchester,” which is due to be released in theaters next February. “So I was in here, and I got to dance with a ghost.” And the arms started to sway like they were dancing,” she said. “I just kind of kept singing, I don’t know why. She thought a friend was playing a joke on her, but when she turned around, no one was there.
In preparation for the new tour, she was cleaning the room of cobwebs and singing to herself when she felt two arms wrap around her. The room’s peaked roof creates a unique capability: If you stand in a certain place, your voice resonates to create an eerie surround sound effect.Įvery tour guide has a ghost story to tell, and Foster says the Witch’s Cap is also where she had her own inexplicable experience back in January.
#WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE INSIDE UPSIDE DOWN WINDOWS#
The new tour allows visitors to get a close-up look at the Crystal Bedroom, named for the glimmering mica embedded in the room’s wallpaper, as well as an attic-like storage space in the house’s north wing where windows and balustrades from the fallen seventh-floor tower are on display.īut the highlight has to be the South Turret Witch’s Cap, the only circular room in the house and the place tour guide Jamie Foster said Harry Houdini once held a seance in 1924. At one point, visitors are required to don hard hats - branded with the Winchester Mystery House logo, naturally - because of the low ceilings and exposed pipes. (A new guest book awaits them at the end of the Explore More tour - if they make it out, of course.)įrom the front door, the tour winds through the house in disorienting fashion, creaking through narrow hallways and up and down staircases that will be new to even frequent visitors. As the first tour groups - which included San Jose City Councilman Chappie Jones - passed through the threshold, they were greeted with a guest book signed by visitors from 1924.
0 kommentar(er)
