![]() ![]() Ornamental carving includes motifs from starbursts and sunflowers to more geometric Eastlake designs.Shingles on roof and walls may create patterns or be polychromatic. Surfaces burst with texture and embellishment: fancy-butt shingles, pebble-dash stucco, half-timbering.Windows are generous in size and variety: find irregular shapes, muntin patterns, bows and bays, oriels, horseshoe windows, and Queen Anne sash with multiple square panes, often with colored glass. ![]() Towers and turrets, with fancy-shaped roofs, are relatively common.Roofs are further embellished with spires and pendants, iron cresting, and perhaps a griffin or dragon perched at the ridge end. Steep, irregular rooflines may have cross gables, hips, and dormers.Both Stick or Eastlake-style houses and American Queen Anne houses feature a multitude of architectural elements: Color, texture, panelizing, and carving or embossing come together in a beautiful tapestry. Inside and out, every surface was ornamented. Today Winchester Mystery House comprises 24,000 square feet in 160 rooms.Ĭourtesy Winchester Mystery House The Aesthetic Movement & Queen Anne Style Now four storeys, the house had a seven-storey tower before the 1906 earthquake, evident in this archival photo. It’s true that staircases spiral-or dead end that doors open to nowhere that the prime number 13 and spider webs are favorite motifs. Whether Sarah believed in ghosts, or was a mathematics prodigy dabbling in labyrinths and encryption, the house she built is a puzzle. Money was no object: Sarah had inherited $20 million ($520 million today) and also had an income from her shares in the company-the equivalent of $26,000 a day in today’s currency. The story told is that Sarah Winchester, widow of rifle heir William Wirt Winchester, was encouraged, during a séance, to leave Connecticut and head to California, to build an eccentric home for the spirits of all those killed by Winchester firearms. ![]() The museum house is privately owned and heavily visited. From the roof on down, every surface is exuberantly ornamented with fish-scale shingles, ball-and-spindle decorations, turnings, carvings, and board siding at the base. Turrets and bays, balconies with fancy railings, irregularly shaped windows, and a “door to nowhere” together create a rich Queen Anne fantasy. The cost was $5 million, or $71 million in today’s currency. Built over and around a modest Victorian farmhouse, the mansion took 38 years to create (1884–1922) and was never really finished. Architecture buffs, on the other hand, are in for a jaw-dropping tour of Aesthetic Movement architecture and decoration. Most of the tourists who visit the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, come for its spooky associations. ![]()
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