I had to take a trip to Silicon Valley for work, and managed to work things so I had time to go to the Winchester Mystery House. Part of the attraction of going there was the old tool connection. In addition to making a ridiculously popular rifle, Winchester expanded into all kinds of other products from roller skates to screw drivers. In particular they had a line of woodworking tools. In the gift shop at the House, there's a little room of display cases holding examples of a bunch of Winchester products. I took some pictures of the tool cases. They're not great, but give an idea what's there. There's also some tools to be seen in a couple of buildings on the self-led garden tour. The garden tour, the Winchester products museum and the firearms museum are all accessible at no cost, so if you're in the area even if the house itself doesn't interest you, it's worth a stop if the tools or guns do. Here's a few more pictures if you're interested.
As you can see, these are not mint tools.
Here's a picture of the outside of the house. It's actually the outside of the horse barn/hayloft wing. I didn't take any pictures inside on the tour because this camera emits too many beeps and isn't great in the spotty lighting inside anyway. There were a couple of things I'd like to have gotten shots of, especially one fanciful stair railing, but overall, the house isn't very interesting from a woodworking point of view. I expected to see miles of custom moldings and fancy woodwork, but Mrs. Winchester just didn't get that creative trying to keep the ghosts at bay. (A psychic told her that her husband and daughter were killed by the ghosts of the people killed by the Winchester Rifle, and that in order to escape them herself she had to go to California and build a house, but never finish it. Mrs. Winchester interpreted this very literally and caused work to continue on the house 24x7 until she died.) There's miles and miles of bead board wainscot, and a whole bunch of textured wallpaper (made from sawdust and linseed oil... Kind of decorative linoleum for your walls), but except for a few fireplace mantels, some nice parquet floors, an occasional handrail, and the "grand ballroom" there wasn't a lot of artful craftsmanship going on. The tour claimed that the ballroom's elaborately panneled walls and ceiling were made completely without nails for acoustic reasons. Maybe all the patched nail holes I could see were from wood reused from other locations during restoration. ;-)
I liked this big ole concrete fountain, especially the interference patterns the ripples were making. I anted up the extra cash to take the "behind the scenes" tour in addition to the basic mansion tour. The girl in the hardhat was our tour guide and she was pretty funny, but other than a couple of little details, the behind the scenes tour is just the garden tour plus a walk through the basement; not worth the extra cost. Unless you really like wearing cheesy hardhats and bonking your head on pipes in hundred-year-old basements.
Overall, the Winchester House was a diverting way to kill a few hours while waiting for a plane back home.
Now I have to go reread Michaela Roessner's Vanishing Point which takes place in large part within the house.
