Few Bay Area buildings come with as many stories as the Winchester Mystery House, the sprawling Victorian off Winchester Boulevard in San Jose. Some of those stories are documented history and some are legend, and a visit goes better if you can tell them apart.

Who Sarah Winchester was

Sarah Winchester was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1839 and married William Wirt Winchester, of the Winchester Repeating Arms family, in 1862, according to Wikipedia's account. Their only child, a daughter named Annie, died in infancy in 1866. After her husband's death, Sarah moved to California in 1885, and in 1886 she bought a farmhouse on a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley that she called Llanada Villa.

She kept building there for the rest of her life. The house's operators describe a Victorian mansion built over 36 years, from 1886 to 1922, known for its craftsmanship and maze-like layout. An 1897 San Jose News article reported that a seven-story tower had been torn down and rebuilt 16 times, Wikipedia notes. Doors and windows that open onto nothing date to severe damage in the 1906 earthquake.

The stairs and the legend

Some of the oddest features have practical explanations. Winchester stood about 4 feet 10 inches tall and had arthritis, and one staircase has 44 steps that rise only about 10 feet. The best-known legend, that she built nonstop to appease the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles, spread after her death. She died on Sept. 7, 1922, and about nine months later the house was opened to the public as a tourist attraction.

Visiting

The guided Mansion Tour takes visitors through 110 of the 160 rooms and runs about 65 minutes, according to the official site. Self-guided basement and attic access are sold only as add-ons to the Mansion Tour, and basement access is limited to ages 5 and up. The site currently offers Santa Clara County residents 25% off with the code LOCALSFIRST, for the first 1,000 orders.

Through the Halloween season, decorations from the separately run Festival Fright Nights event are set up inside the house and may be visible on daytime tours, the site warns. A one-night documentary screening and flashlight tour is scheduled for Nov. 13.

Recently: the mansion's tour guides staged a one-day strike.