Over the years, a legend has built up around the heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune and the labyrinthine mansion she spent much of her life building. No one really knows why Mrs. Winchester continued her renovations and expansions for 38 years, but the most popular theory is that a famous medium said that the ghosts of those killed by the weapons her family produced would come to kill her if she didn’t continuously expand her home. This theory is so exciting that it’s being made into a movie with Helen Mirren.
Less exciting — though much more beneficial for the purposes of this article — is the idea that Sarah Winchester was a loaded old lady who wanted to keep her employees paid as long as possible, including the carpenters. Winchester’s decades-long dedication to her employees’ happiness speaks volumes about who she was as a person, but also, probably, who she is as a ghost. Hence, one could hazard a guess that Sarah Winchester’s ghost wants you to bone in her house.
No, seriously. A woman who was so dedicated to the happiness and longevity of others clearly wants good things for the world around her. What’s more happiness inducing than making a few O’s in a house full of other kinds of groaning?
So here for your benefit are the best and worst rooms in the Winchester Mystery House to have sex in.
[Editor’s note: Neither us nor the staff of the Winchester Mystery House condones having sex in the Winchester Mystery House. But we don’t mean to kink-shame anyone, and we certainly won’t judge you for what you do in your free time.]
Best:
1) North Conservatory
There are many reasons for getting down and dirty around plant life, but since the conservatory was built with removable floorboards specifically to allow for easy drainage, you don’t have to worry about making too much of a mess if your “ecto-gasm” partner is a sprayer. Bonus points for anyone looking for a little up and down action, as the plant elevator arrives directly in this room.
2) Hall of Fires
Want to do it in front of a fireplace on original historic tiling? Want to do it three times? Well, in the Hall of Fires, you can make your steamy desires a reality — no, really, Winchester used to shut all the doors to this hall, light each fire and use the hall like an in-home sauna. IT’S AN UNDEAD REALM OF OPPORTUNITIES, MY FRIENDS.
3) Grand Ballroom
Work your organ in the Grand Ballroom. Once your pipes are primed, you can pluck a few strings and stain something other than the glass, if you know what I mean (but the drapery and wallpaper are all original, so, actually, avoid that if you can).
Worst:
1) Basement
If you choose to spend the extra $10 for the Explore More tour, you’ll get to wander through the basement, where it’s said that the ghost of a gardener has been spotted dutifully pushing a wheelbarrow full of ash. Not only does boinking in the basement have the wrong kind of cinematic vibe, but being watched by a ghost takes voyeurism to a whole new spiritual plane.
2) Sarah Winchester’s Bedroom
The old girl wants you to find happiness in her home and hearth, but there are rules. It’s one thing for Winchester to want you to be happy and a little breathless; it’s another for you to get down to business in the bed where she died.
3) The Gift Shop
The sheer number of children trying to talk their parents into buying ouija boards makes this an exit-only area. Unless you want your tale to be the kind that ends around campfires with the chilling phrase “And they were never heard from again…”
