Conclusion
Sarah Winchester was a remarkable architect and inventor. Her house is a testament to her skill, an example of the Victorian aesthetic at its most intricate and maze-like. For more than a century her legacy has been defined by ghosts stories, seances, and grief. But like her house she contains infinite amounts of complexity. Sarah was smart, generous, and yes maybe aloof but not demented.
Labyrinths can be disorienting but that experience needn't be scary when it can be enlightening, revelatory. A disruption in our space can shift how we make meaning, leading us to new discoveries or in this case, a recovery. When we see the Winchester Mystery House as a labyrinth a new narrative can emerge that does justice to Sarah's talent and humanity.
The Labyrinth gives us the tools to evaluate our trajectory in life. How did you end up in this place, what are you learning, why are you here and where do you need to go from here?
An alternate reading of the WMH informed by labyrinth as a space of contemplation
Sarah Winchester as Innovator
Sarah's time-saving inventions and implementations in her architectural plans are skimmed over in public memory. She invented neat devices that made domestic work easier for her servants. A woman who invented to make the lives of other women easier, she built washboards into the sinks and rounded the corners of the stairs and hallways to make sweeping easier.
She also invented to increase her own mobility. Sarah had arthritis and architectural features were added to accommodate her disability. The steps were made at such an angle to make moving with her extreme arthritis easier. But for an able bodied person they feel awkward and strange. It makes someone without difficulty moving feel aware of their stride and how space is usually designed with their comfort in mind.
Her shower shoots jets across at chest level which was made to keep her hair dos intact; hairdos that were costly and time consuming to create. What might appear odd at first glance or confusing actually provides a counter narrative to the architecture we are all used to- architecture that prioritizes those that are able bodied, higher in socio-economic status, and male.
