California's House of Mystery

The Winchester Mystery House today.

Have your heard of the Winchester Mystery House? It is one of the most famous haunted houses in America and can be found just minutes from the Mineta San Jose Airport, and just a few minutes further from San Francisco International.

The house was built by Sarah Winchester, a woman who inherited a half interest in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and felt her family was cursed because the fortune had come from guns. She owned a lot of acreage in the Santa Clara Valley. Los Altos, the town where I'm living now, was built on land purchased by the railroad from Mrs. Winchester.

She was born Sarah Pardee and married William Winchester in 1862. He was the son of Oliver Winchester, the founder of the Repeating Arms Company, a firm that did a lot of grim business during the U.S. Civil War. As America counted its war dead, Sarah and her husband had just one child who lived only a few weeks. In 1880, Oliver Winchester died and in 1881 Sara's husband died. The wills of the two men left Sarah a wealthy but lonely woman.

It was the era of spiritualism and Sarah, having a fortune estimated at $30 million dollars, found herself a psychic who told her to go west and build a house to please the spirits. As long as construction continued, said the psychic, the spirits would be satisfied and Sarah would live.

She moved to San Jose, California and bought a farmhouse and for the next 38 years, construction on the house never stopped. To those of us who've suffered through the home renovation process, its hard to believe old Sarah, who could have afforded the best, would have put up with all that aggravation for all those years. But she did. And that is what makes the house so strange. Stairways rise to nowhere. Doors open into walls. Towers rise where no towers are called for. Anything--to keep the builders at work.

Needless to say, when Sarah Winchester died, at the age of 83, in 1922, it wasn't the kind of home you could flip, as they say today.

And so it became an attraction.

A photo of the house as it looked during the lifetime of Mrs. Winchester. She can be seen in the small photo above in front of the house in her carriage.

The most interesting news of late about the house, according to the San Jose Mercury News, is that Andrew Trapani, who went to school in the Santa Clara Valley and later made the Lionsgate film The Haunting in Connecticut is planning a movie about the house. If he wants to make it a hit, I hope he'll follow the lead of classic film director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Leopard Man, Out of the Past) and make it a scary movie in which the fear is caused by what he doesn't show.

In the meantime, I'm planning to visit the old house in the coming days--just to see if any spirits are still roaming there) and I just wanted to let you know, in case ... something happens and ... I don't come back.

Photos courtesy of the Winchester Mystery House.

Read Robin's Part Two on the Mystery House

Winchester Mystery House on the Web

Mystery House to Star in Movie


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Google Bombs and Staying Hip

On an endless drive to Redwood City (spotted only three redwoods, all of recent origin) I had plenty of time to catch an interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation with author Bill Wasik about "going viral" on the Internet and other peculiar On-line trends. These included flash mobs (which Wasik invented), to Google bombs and geo caching. You probably already know everything about this stuff if you spend every hour of your day on the Internet. Since I don't it was all very interesting to me. Especially the Google bomb.


In the Google bomb, you and your friends and your friends' friends etc. all agree to Google a name, say, that of your ex-husband with a word, say, "philander". If this idea gets emailed around enough, these two words become linked together by Google's search engine protocol and voila! When someone totally out of the loop Google's "philander", up comes the name of, surprise, surprise, your ex-husband. What a hoot! Mostly this was used, however, by naughty 'netters who Google bombed George Bush with words like "lousy" and "worst president".
(More About the Google Bomb)

I realized in listening that I had accidentally Google bombed myself (but in a good way) by calling my blog "Robin Chapman News" because, with repeated blogs over time, I have linked the word "news" with my name. That's why people who knew me as a news anchor are now having an easier time finding my blog, which, I must admit was a much better outcome than I actually intended. I only called my blog Robin Chapman News because robinchapman.com was already taken by an English poet.

Funny things happen, though, to the items one places on ones blog. I have an old bus poster on one of my Web pages about my years at KGW-TV that includes me and three other KGW-TV anchors from long ago. Recently, one of my readers copied it to his Facebook page. From there someone emailed it to one of the other anchors on the bus poster, who emailed it to a man who used to be a news photographer at KGW-TV, who then emailed it to me with a note saying he thought it might "bring back fond memories". Hey wait. It started on my page in the first place!!! (How many degrees of separation was that?)

The bus poster that took a circuitous route on the Internet.

As to flash mobbing and geo caching, you can Google those. One involves going viral with some sort of quirky meeting, like everyone going to the rug department at Macy's and saying the same thing to the clerks. The other is a sort of Internet/GPS treasure hunt. At least I think that's what these things are.

I'd like to be hip enough to think of something that will "go viral", on the 'net the way the Jib Jab guys did with their "This Land" animation (and get rich in the process and they did). But ever since, after almost a decade in Washington D.C., I emerged having to ask a person in my Florida newsroom who Arrowsmith was, the prognosis may not be quite as good as I'd like.

(Bill Wasik on NPR's Talk of the Nation)

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Movies To Doze By: The Soporific Classics

If you read this blog at all, you know I'm interested in the history of films and in the enjoyment and study of film classics. But all classics are not created equal, and some films, though revered by many, have been known to put me right to sleep. Herewith, my list of classic films with the highest doze factor.

James Dean and a cast of thousands in the movie Giant.

1. Giant (1956) George Stevens directed this dreadful epic about Texas. He wasn't helped much by the wooden acting of his leads, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, who plod through this thing as if weighed down by all the dust of the Perdernales. And though the bright spots include several scenes with James Dean in his last appearance on film, the story goes on, and on, and on, until, when you wake up from your doze, Dean is hidden behind some truly awful old-man make-up and the film still isn't over. A boring and melodramatic subplot involves Mexican-American intermarriage (egad!) and the attempt to steal land rights(holy cow!). An insomniac's delight.
(Giant)

2. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) I have never determined what this movie is about. The evolution of America from rural to industrial--hence all that fuss about the automobile? The wickedness of families when they pressure a child to marry well instead of for love? The rottenness of sons of the wealthy and if so why make the likable but limited Tim Holt play such a character? A great cast, truly wasted. I could go on and on, but why do so when this film does it for me? The original version, sought by Orson Welles purists, was said to run 132 minutes. And yet, its present cut of 88 minutes is long enough to induce a lovely snooze.
(Magnificent Ambersons)



3. The Barefoot Contessa (1954) Joe Mankiewicz made The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, No Way Out, All About Eve, and A Letter to Three Wives, all terrific films. But, this one is not only not in the same league, it is difficult to believe it is by the same writer/director. A great cast (including Humphrey Bogart) is forced to recite dreary speeches about the evils (egad!) of Hollywood. There are no likable characters, and Ava Gardner plays her part with a strange pseudo-Spanish accent. The plot turns on a sexy star resisting every man who lusts after her and then marrying one who cannot. Lust after her. The opening sequence takes place in a surreal version of a Spanish cafe and after that, you'll be crying Toro! Toro! Toro! as your eyelids begin to droop.
(The Barefoot Contessa)

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Set your alarm to wake you during the sequence when computer Hal takes over the space ship. Other than that, this Stanley Kubrick tale has always been totally incomprehensible to me. My friends who experimented widely with drugs during their youth, look back at this film with great fondness. Try watching it stone cold sober and you'll find, when you awake, there is not a plot point to recall. Works better than Roofies for leaving one with no memory, the morning after.
(2001: A Space Odyssey)

5. The Searchers (1956) Here is a John Ford film missing his usual, wonderful, cast of "Ford company" actors. Except, of course, John Wayne, who is his usual wonderful self playing this awful guy. We are expected to believe the leaden Jeffrey Hunter is an Indian octoroon (hey, a wooden Indian!) and believe that our hero John Wayne is a creepy racist. Oh, and it takes five years to find "Debbie" (not a popular 19th century name, I think) who turns out to be Natalie Wood dressed up like a Madame Alexander doll, which is itself dressed up like the white man's vision of an Indian maid. I'm not buying any of this nonsense and why it is on so many top ten film lists is something I have never understood. But when I'm down, its a bridge over troubled waters for me and I just lay me down and ZZZZZZ.
(The Searchers)

6. A Touch of Evil 1958 So much over-acting goes on in this film, it is no wonder director and so-called star Orson Welles looks like huge, bloated, beached whale: all those calories consumed from all that chewed scenery. Another great cast wasted as Janet Leigh, Charleton Heston, Dennis Weaver, Ray Collins, and Akim Tamiroff walk and drive endlessly through the stopped down, noir-ish version of life south of the border. The long opening shot is a wonder to film aficionados. But hit the snooze button for the rest of it.
(A Touch of Evil)

7. Splendor in the Grass (1961) I just about choked when I learned the great Elia Kazan had directed this turkey. It is just more evidence that the sixties were a troubled time for the film business. Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty drag themselves through this tale, the theme of which seems to be: if you resist having sex when you are young you may end up having to go to a mental hospital (Natalie Wood), or end up as a farmer wearing Oshkosh B'Gosh overalls (Warren Beatty). Writer William Inge (Picnic) hits an extremely odd note here, but that's the beauty of it. Catch the first scene, doze, and wake up for the overalls at the end, with Natalie still in a white (wink wink) dress.
(Splendor in the Grass)

8. Godfather Part II (1974) I know everybody loves this Coppola movie but, jeez, it looks like it was entirely shot at night without lights. Dark, dark, dark. And besides, this brooding dark thing beat out the absolutely terrific Chinatown for best picture that year. Now I ask you. The film is so dark you can sleep, wake up occasionally for an explosion, and put your head right back on pillow and not miss a thing. Famous cast, blah blah blah, but even Marlon was too smart to be in this one. Better than clonezapam on a dull night.
(Godfather: Part II)

9. The Last Emperor (1987) Two hours and forty minutes of unrelieved historical misery directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. This thing won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars that year, evidence of the horrible insecurities of American Academy members. Also released that year were far better movies including Moonstruck, House of Games, Broadcast News, Robocop, The Princess Bride, and (one of two watchable Kevin Costner films), The Untouchables . Still two hours and forty minutes is a pretty good nap time.
(The Last Emperor)



10. A Place in the Sun I can't believe this second sleep-inducing offer from the late great George Stevens only runs 122 minutes. The opening sequences are so promising with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor looking absolutely ravishing as they fall in love and Shelly Winters doing a fine job as the mousy other woman, that when it all starts to go wrong, it just goes on and on. I usually fall asleep about the time the autumn leaves start blowing through Elizabeth Taylor's bedroom in the family lake house, look through heavy eyelids to see Raymond Burr as the very mean prosecutor showing that rowboat during the endless trial, and, finally awaken to see Liz saying goodbye to Monty in his cell. Better than NyQuil to help you sleep through a heavy cold.
(A Place in the Sun)

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The Long and Winding Road to Pescadero

Isolated Pescadero Beach is just twenty-two miles south of busy San Francisco.

One of the most remarkable, and beautiful, things I've re-discovered about the San Francisco Bay Area is that in and around this region of seven million people are rural hills and forests, open spaces and green spaces within minutes of the major population centers. Though the number of people living here has increased by about seven fold since I was a child, the region has retained much of the beauty and isolation of its hills and coast.

I decided it was time for another Northern California Road Trip. Pescadero, on the California coast, was my destination.

I had heard from a friend that you could take Page Mill Road west from Palo Alto, through the hills, and that it would deliver you straight away to Pescadero. I decided to try it. I found that the directions were correct, but there was nothing straight away or straight about the road.

The hills all around the Bay Area were once covered with redwood forests. On the bay side, much of the timber was gone by the end of the 19th century, and loggers began turning to the stands of timber on the ocean side of the Coastal Range. It sounds like a terrible thing today, but it is only now that we know the centuries required for a stand of redwood to grow back. The lumber was the best you could build with. It resisted insects and it would, not surprisingly, last forever. My Dad built our first house with redwood timber.

Page Mill Road heads up into the hills above Stanford University. The oak and chaparral (from the Spanish word chaparro: small oak) gradually give way to the small forests of scrub and pine that filled in after most of the redwoods were gone. Grizzlies once roamed these hills and above, the condor cast its enormous shadow on the land below. The grizzly could not live adjacent to humans and, though it is featured on the California state flag, the last one in the state was killed by a rancher in 1922. The condor dwindled as its habitat was destroyed. It has been reintroduced into California; but, I have never seen one. With a wing span of nine feet, you would know if you had.

Even lacking these two monsters of the hills, the road above the bay is spectacular. Full of hairpin turns and few places to turn out it isn't a road you can use to speed along to your destination. As you travel there is an occasional gate for the home of some isolated eccentric. Farther up in the hills, you see the rusted cars and the peace sign of a commune. It is California. But mostly it is empty land, land without fences, a road in which the twists are so sharp I was delighted to see a family of quail tiptoe across the road on the other side of a hairpin turn.

I discovered I was on Alpine Road here, and also discovered a few remaining stands of redwoods. The scent of them and the shade they cast was lovely.

I didn't always know exactly where I was. Some of the time I was on Skyline Boulevard at the top of the ridge, and some of the time I was in Los Trancos Woods. but it didn't really matter. In California if you just point your car to the west, you will eventually find the ocean. In the meantime the views from the top of the ridge were spectacular. The few cars I saw on the road were often pulled over to the side to gaze at the view.

And, since it is California, there was the occasional lone cyclist cranking up the hills slowly in complete cycling costume and helmet, the sinews working at maximum glycogen levels. Not for me, but its a free country.

And then, almost suddenly, you roll down into a gentle arroyo and in the distance is the Pacific Ocean. Little farms appear, with fields of artichokes and vineyards and here and there, a herd of goats and some horses. The wildflowers are in bloom and you say to yourself: this is where I would live if I were one of those Silicon Valley multi-millionaires.

The view, looking back at the hills I had just crossed from Palo Alto to the coast. It had taken less than a hour.

Before you reach Pescadero State Beach, you can turn off near the foot of the arroyo, to visit the little town of Pescadero. Pescadero means fish town in Spanish, handed down to us from piscis, the Latin word for fish. The Spanish learned that the coastal Indians (whom they called the Costanos) used to fish here, hence the name. Pescadero became a popular fishing resort in the 19th century when there was a train down here from San Francisco (the line had to be rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake). Pescadero is much smaller now than it was back then. But the old houses on its main street that recall its past are very pretty.

A house on Pescadero's North Street, just off Stage Road.

There's not much else to see, unless you want to stay and eat at Duarte's Tavern, a family owned restaurant now run by the fourth generation of Duartes. It is a highly rated restaurant. Duartes is known for their wines and gourmet artichoke dishes and serve 13,000 diners a month.

Then down to the sea, where it is impossible to take a bad photograph, no matter how hard you try.

The Pacific, off Pescadero Beach.

Perhaps I am a romantic, but standing on the edge of the North American continent at Pescadero, it is impossible for me not to imagine the wonder of the lands beyond. Perhaps, one day, I will be lucky enough to go even further west than the spot I'm standing on now, further west across the Pacific on an even more magical road trip on the sea.

Duarte's Tavern Link
Coastside and Half Moon Bay Link
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