Highlights from our IM chat are after the jump.
Stephen: I'd never even visited it before I worked there. I'd read about it, and I may have seen some things on TV. I intentionally put off visiting the inside of the house until after I was hired, so my first time in the mansion was during orientation. I think I was most surprised by how "friendly" the house really seemed, it's very open in most places, and sort of cheerful. I mean, it has 10,000 windows.
Jaunted: What were the people you worked with like? I think you mentioned that there were some stories about weird happenings there . . .
Stephen: There are really several types of people that work there. There are the seasonal employees that work there in the summer, mostly high school and college kids ( a lot of drama students). Then there's the lifers, people that started in high school as guides and kept working there. And there are front office business and marketing types. By far, the most interesting group is the restoration crew. They really have a good handle on the mansion and put a lot of work into restoring it in a historically accurate way. I like to think of them as a continuation of he work the original carpenters did. They're very matter-of-fact about things, and I mention them because one of them had probably the most compelling story about a weird experience in modern years . . . . He swears he ran into a spirit on the 'Original Back Porch Steps' one morning. He's always embarrassed to tell the story, but documentary crews love to hear him tell it . . . . I think it's most compelling because he doesn't want it to be true.
We also asked him if anyone on staff was the sort of person looking to see ghosts and spooks.
Stephen: Yes, there are usually a few people that feel they commune with the spirits, but generally I think employees there become somewhat attached to Mrs. Winchester and very protective of the way she's perceived. I know that I did. The management encourages that too, and ghost stories aren't really part of the normal tour the way they may have been in past years. If spirits are mentioned, it's usually in the context of Mrs. Winchester.
Stephen: The one exception is the basement ghost
Jaunted: What's that?
Stephen: For guests that take the 'Behind-the-Scenes' tour, which is a relatively new tour that concentrates on some places that the normal tour can't really get to, it's okay to talk about something a few tour guides and a guest reported in the basement. Two guides and a guest each reported seeing a workman with a wheelbarrow in the basement, on separate occasions. They all pointed out the same gentleman in an old photograph of Mrs. Winchester's carpentry crew. He looks pretty happy in the photo, and I like to think that if there's a spirit in the house, then it's a friendly hard-working spirit.
Jaunted: Especially if he can help put up shelves or something.
Stephen: Yes, exactly. Or clean the basement. It takes a long time to clean the basement.
Jaunted: In addition to the natural [draw] of seeing something that few people are going to see, even if they visit, I think a major attraction of your blog is just to see how many ornate details there are everywhere. What are yr. favorite places, either public or non-public?
Stephen: I really love the grand ballroom. Mrs. Winchester was a musician, and I get the feeling that she spent a lot of her time there. It also has one of the best clues into her personality, two stained glass windows bearing quotes from Shakespeare. One is from Troilus and Cressida "Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts," and is said by Ulysses about Cressida and her nature as a tease. The other is "These same thoughts people this little world" from Richard the II, which Richard speaks while he is in prison.
Basically his whole world has been reduced to his own thoughts because of his isolation. I think those quotes tell us a lot about Mrs. Winchester. She was a society darling in her youth in Connecticut, but ultimately became very isolated (though not as isolated as [some] people believe).
Jaunted: Gotcha. I love what you had to say about the ballroom -- maybe she's due for a good biography. Seems like so much of her life is sketchy, though.
Stephen: Yeah, we don't really even know when she was born. Her birth certificate is lost. 1839 or 1840. I think there's a movie in their somewhere, though I feel like it would be better focused on the people around her. There was a whole community there on the estate, and most of what we do know came from interviews with people that worked for her, or their children.
Jaunted: Could be a little like that Altman movie from a couple years back [Gosford Park]
Stephen: Definitely, as directed by Tim Burton.
Thanks for talking with us, Stephen!
Related Stories:
· Mystery House blog
· Winchester Mystery House [Official site]
· The Winchester Mysteries [J3tlag]
· Winchester Mystery House tour-guide blogs off-limits rooms [Boing-Boing]
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