The Winchester Mystery House Hits the Big Screen

Helen Mirren, as Sarah Winchester, studies house plans in “Winchester,” set to be released Feb. 2 by CBS Films and Lionsgate. Photo by Ben King 

Now known as the Winchester Mystery House, it’s considered by some to be haunted by the spirits of people killed by The Gun That Won the West.

Legend has it that Winchester was a madwoman who ordered nonstop construction on the 24,000-square-foot house — with hundreds of rooms, stairs leading nowhere and doors opening into walls — to appease or confuse those ghosts. Another explanation, interesting in its own right, is that she was a grieving but visionary widow who used her wealth to experiment with technology and educate herself in the architecture of countries around the world.

Watch on Houzz TV: See the architectural oddities and early technologies of the Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester house is a Victorian-era Queen Anne, with fish-scale-patterned shingles, finial-crowned gables and witch’s hat roofs. Construction began in 1886 and lasted for decades.

In 2012, a script about the tourist attraction drew the interest of German-born Australian directors and identical twin brothers Peter and Michael Spierig (Jigsaw, Predestination). “We were like, this house sounds incredible! So we visited it,” Michael says. “Peter and I fell in love with the house, did the infamous house tour…. We came on board and worked on the script for the better part of two years, developing ideas, continually researching and going back to the house.”

Photo from CBS Films

Original vs. Replica

The house’s dark, cramped rooms and present-day location next to a busy shopping center and freeway weren’t conducive to filming a movie that takes place in 1906. So the directors reproduced parts of the mansion in Australia.

“We built the first level of the house in a paddock,” production designer Matt Putland says. “We found some great trees that matched the trees that were in San Jose, and we basically built a garden, a driveway, the veranda, the front door and a few other areas as part of an exterior set on a property just outside of Melbourne.”

The exterior shots in the film combine a physically re-created ground level, a computer-generated tower and, for the rest, a virtual 3D model made from hundreds of photos taken by drone.

Jason Clarke, as Dr. Eric Price, stands on the film-set version of the switchback staircase. Photo by Ben King

On the set. Although seven flights of mini stairs zigzag back and forth to rise to one level in the house, the production team built only four flights for the set.

“Re-creating that on a set was quite a struggle since we needed to get a film crew, three actors, cameras and everything onto the set. A lot of the pieces had to be dismantled for camera access but still hold their integrity,” Putland says.

Anaglypta wallpaper and stained glass on the set. Photo by Ben King 

On the set. “We made a stained-glass window with 13 gems. As for the rest of our stained-glass windows, they reference the designs directly from the house. The spiderweb design will pop up in a few places, and the stained-glass patterns on the doors are patterned straight from the Winchester house,” Putland says.

“Sarah had one of the largest collections of Lincrusta wallpaper that exists, and it is still at the house,” he says. “Those original wallpapers date from the late 1800s. We had to find an Anaglypta wallpaper that we could source in Australia. We couldn’t match the exact pattern but found something which we feel is similar and altered the color…. We chose a warmer tannish yellow and gave it a texture over the top to bring out the 3D effect of the wallpaper.”

The mansion’s ballroom

In the house. After filming in Australia, members of the cast and crew traveled to San Jose in May to spend three days shooting the ballroom, a bedroom, the attic, hallways and the jumble of rooftop gables, spires and turrets. Then the editors fused the set and house together.

In one scene, “our actors walk down this hall and through the doorway on the set in Melbourne,” Putland says. “They will peek through a curtain. What they see is the actual house in San Jose.”

Mirren as Winchester in the set’s ballroom. Photo by Ben King 

On the set. “Sarah Winchester built the most-talked-about, expensive mansion of 1906, when it was at its peak in size and grandeur,” Putland says. “We wanted to really represent Sarah’s aesthetic — that lush richness we feel would have been her style of the time. She was importing chandeliers from Germany. The parquet floors in the ballroom have eight different timbers in them. As a designer, to be given the task of re-creating that aesthetic and that level of opulence has been a lot of fun and a massive challenge.”