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.

When you leave the Daisy Bedroom, you’ll follow your guide up a short flight of normal stairs to the third floor of the mansion. The rooms on this next level belonged to the house servants, in comparison to the lower levels, appear quite humble.

The photo above shows a hallway very much like the one used on the tour, but unrestored and locked away from view. This floor also seems very small and cramped, with narrower hallways and low ceilings than the first and second floors. This impression is enhanced by the fact that most of the floor is locked off to guests and employees because of safety and structural concerns.

The tour stops only once on the third floor, in a pair of rooms described as a servant’s parlor and call room. Both of these rooms have been extensively restored in recent years, and they probably bear very little resemblance to the original state of the rooms.

The tour script for this stop covers Mrs. Winchester’s working relationships, and discusses pay rates and hiring practices. Much of the material in the mansion tour script comes from interviews with relatives of estate employees, so I’m not surprised that this is one of the most thoroughly sourced stops on the mansion tour.

Its also one of the most haunted, if you believe the stories of guides. One close friend of mine told me stories of hearing her name whispered while she worked on the third floor, and another refused to go to the third floor alone after she encountered a presence in the parlor.

One interesting feature of the third floor is a ‘reference room,’ closed to the public and used as a reference in restoration. A full time restoration crew works at the mystery house, and they use this room as a reference for any construction they undertake.

Come back on Monday for a glimpse of… THE FOURTH FLOOR!