For quite some time I've wanted to visit the Winchester Mystery house in person, even way before the movie it was a spot on my list of places to visit. The history of the house is quite interesting & I've always loved things that are spooky/supernatural so of course it was on my list of places to see. We were finally able to stop by in December on a family trip to California, thus we were able to be there when it was decorated for Christmas.
I thought it was interesting that they allowed guests to take photographs, but we were all told we couldn't film inside of any of the rooms. Our whole tour lasted about an hour, and it took us through about a dozen rooms in the house. The house is much larger than that, but a lot of the rooms are closed off to the public.
The tour might not be for everyone, the ticket prices are a little high & none of the furniture in the house is original from when the home belonged to Sarah Winchester. However the furniture is from the same time period, after she had passed away her niece inherited all of her belongings so she kept what she wanted & sold off the rest. I didn't want to visit for the furniture though, I can to see the house itself. It's story and the way it was built is interesting and something we aren't likely to see again, so the tour kept us interested and we had a good time.
If I ever happen to be blessed enough to build my own home, I would definitely want an indoor green house like the rooms she had built here. It would be nice to have a whole indoor space to take care of my plants and protect them from the elements. Speaking of plants, the property has a large garden which you can also tour. We weren't able to do that this time around because we were on a schedule but we did opt to buy a photography package. You were given some period friendly clothing to wear over your own & then the photographer takes you inside of the house to take some photos inside of the rooms.
We 100% thought the photography package was worth it because not only did we get to take photos inside of some of the rooms you aren't allowed to enter on the tour, but the photographer told us quite a bit of extra information and history of the house. The gift shop was lovely as well, they had a ton of stuff to look at if you are waiting for your tour time to start. I picked up a few small souvenirs to bring home with me, but I was sad that all of the penny press machines and such were not working. All in all, it was a lovely visit and I can cross this off of my to do list! If I had a chance to see more of the house and explore the gardens, I would come back again.
If you are planning a trip to California & are looking for other activities to do feel free to type in "Things to do in California" in the search bar of my blog so you can find some other great activities in California. You can also click the "Things to do in California" link located on the right hand side of my blog/in this post.
🟊 This is not a sponsored post, we paid for this ourselves. I just enjoy sharing awesome spots with my readers.
