Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

Stop 8: The Unfinished Dressing Room

This is another one of those rooms that exists to corral the guests before moving on. Before heading into this room by way of the ’secret passage,’ I recommend hanging back in The Seance Room for a moment to take photos or get a better look around without the crowd. The guide will stay in the room until you’re done, and will even answer additional questions while she waits.

Once you pass through the secret door, you’ll find yourself crowded into a dark room with little to see. The guide will discuss the giant sprinkler pipes hanging from the ceiling (installed in the forties), and then you’ll move on to the next (more interesting) room.

One interesting fact about the unfinished dressing room is that its at least a foot higher in elevation than the seance room, despite the fact that they adjoin. In fact, the entire second floor of the mansion sits on three different levels, roughly corresponding to the height of the original structures that comprised them. The front rooms of the mansion corespond to the original farmhouse that sat on the property, while the middle rooms seem built around a water tower that was enveloped during construction. The back rooms, which end with the seance room are roughly on level with the barn structure that originally occupied the rear portion of the site.

Also, note that the ‘Unfinished’ room was completed at one point. If you look closely at the gaps between the strips of wood (’laths’) that make up the walls, you’ll see bits of plaster clinging to the walls. The finished plaster was stripped off at some point, leaving bare wooden walls. Since most of the actual building of the house took place prior to 1906, much of the later work consisted of remodeling efforts. Mrs. Winchester likely ordered this room rebuilt just prior to her death, or she may have lost interest in it was no longer feasible for her to climb the stairs necessary to reach the room.