On September 5, 1922, eccentric philanthropist Sarah Lockwood Pardee Winchester dies of heart failure at age 83 at the massive house she had spent nearly four decades building. Upon news of her death, construction immediately stops on the enigmatic Victorian estate she named “Llanada Villa.”
Winchester—heiress of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company through her husband, William Wirt Winchester—had purchased an eight-room farmhouse in San Jose, California, in 1886 after moving from Connecticut. For the next 36 years, Winchester used her $20-million inheritance on expanding and renovating the house in an endless project.
