If ever you’re in the San Jose area and looking for a unique experience, the Winchester Mystery House may fill the bill. Sarah Winchester, the firearms heiress, left Connecticut after her husband died and settled in California.

Apparently, she was worried that all those people who died on the wrong end of a Winchester gun might cause bad karma, so she communed with the spirits, and was told that, as long as construction never ceased, she was good. So there was continual work done 24×7, with new rooms, wings, additions being added and torn down all the time.

When the 1906 earthquake hit, the part of the house that was already constructed at the time was sealed up and abandoned. Yes, this place is an example of project creep at its worst.

The interior is a maze of corridors, secret passageways, rooms that were never finished, and even rooms that were finished but never used. If you have a couple of hours, it’s worth a look.