Our Doors Are Open

Table Of Content

• VISIT SAN JOSE
• The Winchester Mystery House: California’s Original Haunted Mansion?
• Sarah spared no expense in fitting out her new mansion
• Legendary punk rock acts gathering for one huge Bay Area concert
• Housing
• Journey Through the Beautiful & Bizarre Winchester Mystery House
• Historical Trips - Book your next historical adventure

The Victorian and Gothic-style mansion is renowned for its size and its architectural curiosities and for the numerous myths and legends surrounding the structure and its former owner. There’s lots to do in the area, including checking out the Winchester Mystery House or exploring one of the many green spaces or lush parks. West Valley has plenty of options for single-family homes, ranging in styles like mid-century modern, ranch, and Craftsman.

VISIT SAN JOSE

The first hit of this city’s unmistakable techy-ness starts right off the bat—if you get here by plane. Meet Space Observer, a 26-foot/7.9-meter-high white-and-chrome robot that welcomes you to Terminal B at ultra-modern Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport. But even if you don’t get the meet-and-greet from the big guy at the airport, you’ll find plenty of other ways to experience the dramatic rebirth of California’s third largest city as the Silicon Valley’s urban hub. Downtown is packed with worthy destinations, like ultra-hands-on The Tech Museum, and light and airy San Jose Museum of Art. De Anza Hotel is an Art Deco gem, while the SAP Center, which draws headline entertainers and is home to the San Jose Sharks NHL franchise, is a glassy modern palace.

The Winchester Mystery House: California’s Original Haunted Mansion?

She continued to receive profits from the sales of Winchester firearms throughout her life. This newfound money made her one of the wealthiest women in the world at the time. The house took some 38 years to build, supposedly inspired by the advice of a psychic, and construction went ahead without an architect or plans. The result is a haphazard, labyrinth-like structure full of odd features, such as corridors to nowhere and doors that don’t open. Enjoy a kaleidoscope of ethnic restaurants, including Ethiopian fare at Zeni (try to sit at one of the round tables in the back). American-style meat and potatoes get matched with rotating craft beers at local favorite Harry’s Hofbrau.

Sarah spared no expense in fitting out her new mansion

When offered advice on how to avoid falling into a tourist trap, the survey respondents said the most helpful tip was to "visit well-known landmarks, but don't make them the sole focus of your trip." Although nearly all respondents acknowledged recently visiting a tourist trap, almost 70% said their visit to a tourist trap diminished their overall enjoyment of their trip. San Francisco offers a variety of tours and attractions that are easily accessible to everyone.

Legendary punk rock acts gathering for one huge Bay Area concert

Winchester Mystery House Announces "Unhinged: Housewarming" Halloween Haunt - LaughingPlace.com - Laughing Place

Winchester Mystery House Announces "Unhinged: Housewarming" Halloween Haunt - LaughingPlace.com.

Posted: Fri, 28 Jul 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

On sunny days (which are the norm here), take your food out to a table or bench in the adjacent plaza, bordered by the 1797 Peralta Adobe (the city’s oldest building; guided tours are offered throughout the year). Beyond football, the venue is slated to host college football games, domestic and international soccer matches, motocross events, concerts, wrestling, and more. Public tours of Levi’s Stadium and its new 49ers Museum let you check out all this fabulousness, even if you’re not going to a game or event. The stadium also makes it easy to use public transit, with close-by access to local light rail, bus, and Caltrain.

Housing

The Tech Museum of Innovation- Family-friendly interactive science and technology center located in the heart of downtown San Jose, California. Happy Hollow Park & Zoo- San Jose’s premier family destination, offers amusement rides, puppet shows, interactive play areas, educational programs, unique events, and exciting adventures the whole family will enjoy. Winchester Mystery House management and staff have worked extensively to prepare for reopening.

Our tour guide was entertaining and energetic as she led us on a 65-minute scripted tour of the mansion. Along the way, we encountered a lot of unusual spaces, strange-looking rooms, quirky construction features, and stories of peculiar behavior by the mansion’s owner. Our guide also enhanced the strange and unusual parts of the home with corny jokes, intriguing ideas, and spooky suggestions. Even though it seemed a little too well rehearsed at times, all in all, it was a lot of fun.

Winchester could have been engaging in an eccentric brand of philanthropy, as she built her home during an economic depression, and the continuous construction project provided jobs for locals. When she died, in fact, the heiress left most of her money to charity. Once referred to as an “important” room to Sarah Winchester by world-renowned psychic-medium James Van Praagh, the Witches Cap had it’s doors opened on the Explore More Tour in 2017.

The most notable date in the construction of Llanada Villa was April 18, 1906, when the great San Francisco earthquake caused tremendous devastation throughout the region, and Sarah Winchester’s home suffered severe damage. The house was forever changed when chimneys collapsed, a wing was destroyed, and a prominent seven-story tower toppled down. Damage from the earthquake can still be viewed at the property even today, and the mansion was never restored to its former prominence. A few years after the death of her husband, Sarah left her home in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1885 to relocate to San Jose, California. Most likely, she moved west to live in a drier and warmer climate due to problems with rheumatoid arthritis, an illness that plagued her all her life. Here she purchased an eight-room farmhouse and ranch in 1886, which she called Llanada Villa.

Tourism experts previously told Business Insider that spreading out tourists who otherwise congregate at the same places at the exact same times can help destinations manage overwhelming numbers of tourists. The Winchester Mystery House is in many ways the perfect American roadside attraction in that it is a combination of history and folklore built around the eccentricities of a mysterious, private person. Knowing very few details about the history of the Winchester Mystery House, my daughter, Liz, and I booked a weekday noon tour and drove from San Francisco to San Jose. The Winchester Mystery House is just off Highway 280 and across the street from Santana Row. But, at the top of any list of creepy homes in the United States is always the Winchester Mystery House. I genuinely enjoy visiting and seeing places that have become a part of American folklore.

Of course, its size is not the only thing that is unique about the house. Not all the 2,000 doors can be walked through—one leads to an eight-foot drop to a kitchen sink, another to a 15-foot drop into bushes in the garden below. Staircases lead straight to ceilings, expensive Tiffany stained-glass windows were installed in places where they would get no light, and there are more secret passages than Narnia. A particularly odd delight is a cabinet that, when opened, extends through 30 rooms of the house.

A massive earthquake struck the Bay Area in 1906 and toppled the top three stories of the house, damaging the other four stories along with it. Some say Sarah Winchester took this as a sign from the spirits that she was too close to completion and ordered the unfinished front half of the house to be boarded up. Though it’s open now, signs of damage from the earthquake are still clearly visible. Downtown, the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts hosts Broadway traveling productions, as well as a full calendar of international artists. What many consider to be the heart of the mansion, the séance room was once the very private and off-limits room to everyone but Sarah Winchester herself. Legends say that nearby residents heard the bell tower (located outside of the séance room) at midnight and again at 2am.