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.

The tour script describes these rooms as guest quarters, and the revelation that a famous recluse built guest rooms in her mansion usually stirs up some questions from guests. Why would Mrs. Winchester build bedrooms for visitors? I always wanted to reply with my own question, why did Mrs. Winchester do anything? In a house with doors that open to walls, building rooms you don’t plan to use seems like a minor quirk. In reality, Mrs. Winchester probably built these rooms because she was wealthy, and the houses she’d known had guest chambers.

Its also important to remember that no one starts life as a recluse, and Mrs. Winchester was a relatively young woman when she made the journey to San Jose. I don’t believe she planned to become the eccentric heiress she was known as, and she may have intended to start her life over completely.

Like many of the rooms in the mansion, this one doesn’t have a lot of specific interest, so the tour guide will offer some additional information by way of two side-by-side photographs of the mansion. One taken around 1900, the other about 2000. The intent is to highlight the differences in the house before and after the earthquake, but its not as clear because the two photos show different sides of the mansion.

To help you get a better idea, here is the 1906 picture along with a recent photo from the same angle:

From this room, you’ll walk through some additional damaged guest quarters until you reach the Daisy Bedroom, where Mrs. Winchester found herself trapped after the earthquake.