A closer look
Sarah Winchester, the massively wealthy heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, spent 38 years continuously building a sprawling, chaotic mansion in California because a psychic told her she was being haunted by the ghosts of everyone killed by her family's guns. To confuse the angry spirits, she designed a completely unhinged architectural nightmare featuring stairs that lead directly into the ceiling, doors that open to two-story drops, and windows installed in the floor. She kept construction going 24 hours a day, seven days a week, convinced that the moment the hammers stopped, the ghosts would finally catch up to her and exact their revenge. It stands today as a monumental, multi-million-dollar testament to the raw power of unbridled guilt and a total lack of building codes
