The August “Where in CA is This?” was a photo looking out of an upstairs window over the complex rooftop of the Winchester Mystery House (WMH) in San Jose, CA. There were several who correctly identified the location: John Canby, Joseph Cash, LSIT, of Caltrans, Richard Elgenson, Mary Stanton of MBS Land Surveys and Steve Martin. I found the methods they used to be fascinating.

 

Joseph used clues and technology to lead him to a location. He cropped the image and used Google Lense to find similar images, then Google Earth to identify the probable window.  Initially he thought UCB campus or other college campus. Richard used his intuition about the complicated roofs and guessed they belonged to the WMH. He then backed up his guess with additional research and information. He found it on a mapping program and when in street view, felt the wooden rods on the top of roofs matched, plus the windows and fish scale shingles matched. The final and convincing piece of evidence was the round roof in the distance which is a movie theater. Mary also guessed the WMH, and used a Google Earth check to prove herself right. Steve relied on recognizing the view from a previous visit.

 

  

Try to identify the location of this month’s photos. Please tell me how you identified the location. Submit your answer or submit your photo of a special location in California to: Rob McMillan