Sarah Winchester bought an unfinished farmhouse in San Jose in 1886. For the next 38 years, until her death in 1922, she had construction crews working on the house 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It became a sprawling, seven story mansion with 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 13 bathrooms, and six kitchens. The house had three elevators, and was centrally heated. There were also 47 fireplaces. The house is full of oddities. Stairways lead to ceilings. Doors open on to walls. Some doors on the upper stories open toCaliforiair, a long drop to the ground outside. The number 13 appears everywhere. There are 13 bathrooms, and most of them have 13 windows. Many of the walls have 13 panels. The 13th bathroom has 13 windows on its 13th wall. Sarah Winchester was the widow of William Wirt Winchester, who invented the Winchester repeating rifle. When he died in 1881, she inherited 20 million dollars and 50 percent ownership of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which gave her an income of 1,000 dollars a day. This would be 30,000 dollars a day in today's money. Spiritualists told Sarah that the ghosts of the people killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. The only way to appease them, she was told, was to continuously build a house for them. If construction ever stopped, she would die. This is why construction continued, around the clock, for 38 years. She communicated with the spirits in a séance room in the house, and would give her builders daily instructions based on what the spirits told her. Sarah Winchester designed the house herself, even though she had no architectural experience. The spirits were her only guide. She was only five feet tall, and had custom made sinks and stairways built to accommodate her height. She was an accomplished pianist, but only played one song, "Swanee River," every night on the piano in her 13th bathroom. The 1906 earthquake destroyed the top three stories of the house. Sarah was trapped in her bedroom until her servants rescued her. She believed the spirits were angry with the progress of the house, so she had the front 30 rooms boarded up. The house now stands at four stories. Sarah Winchester died in her sleep on September 5, 1922, at the age of 83. The house was willed to her niece, who sold it to a group of investors. It was opened to the public in 1923, and has been a tourist attraction ever since.

The widow who never stopped hammering

When Sarah Winchester's husband, William, heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune, died of tuberculosis in 1881, she inherited roughly $20 million. That's about $600 million today. She also inherited a rumor that would cling to her for the rest of her life. A Boston medium, the story went, had told her the Winchester family was haunted by every soul killed by their rifle. The medium had said Sarah would die too, unless she began building a house, and never stopped.

Construction: 1886 to 1922. Thirty-six years, twenty-four hours a day.

Sarah bought an unfinished eight-room farmhouse in San Jose in 1886 and immediately hired carpenters to expand it. They never left. Crews worked in shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the next 36 years. This went on until the morning she died in her sleep in 1922. That's when they were told to lay down their tools, mid-nail.

What they left behind

• 160 rooms, including 40 bedrooms
• 10,000 windows, some looking into other rooms
• A staircase that rises seven steps, then drops eleven
• A door on the second floor that opens onto a two-story drop to the garden
• A séance room in the center of the house with only one entrance, which Sarah entered every night at midnight

Whether Sarah Winchester actually believed the medium is now impossible to prove. She left no letters explaining the design. But she did leave the house. The house is still there, on South Winchester Boulevard, exactly as she left it in 1922.