Citation for that: Colin Dickey’s Ghostland. Many libraries have copies; failing that, https://www.amazon.com/Ghostland-American-History-Haunted-Places/dp/1101980192
Indeed, towards the end, she didn’t even live in the house. Her primary residence was in Atherton. Dickey does say she learned to use the big house’s noncompletion to hold potential guests at bay:
There’s a passive-aggressive quality to Winchester’s building: she was nominally getting her house ready to entertain guests, particularly family from New Haven, who were accustomed to houses of a certain size, but then continually begged off guests under the pretense that the house was never quite done.
She was building to keep from being haunted by people who had YET to give up the ghost!
