Mr. Klinsky and Ms. Sherry own a home with their four children in New York City. Ok, not your average home, in any sense of the word. A very expensive 5th Avenue apartment with a view of Central Park. The couple spent a little fortune for a complete renovation of the $8.5 million apartment that took one year. Step in Eric Clough, the brilliant, puzzle-loving architect.
I'll summarize briefly. Holy Cool! The New York Times article, here, reported the project. Basically the home became a giant puzzle. The designer used furniture, fixtures, hidden compartments, cyphers, even music and a book to create a puzzle for the family to figure out. The family, with the help of a mysterious letter and several clues, began a fascinating hunt around the home to find secret phrases, pictures, compartments with books, keys and locks, a musical score, cyphers, crossword puzzles and even a magnetic box that opened secret doors. In the end it led to the great secret. I quote some from the article:
"Then one night four months later, Cavan Klinsky, who is now 11, had a friend over. The boy was lying on the floor in Cavan’s bedroom, staring at dozens of letters that had been cut into the radiator grille. They seemed random — FDYDQ, for example. But all of a sudden the friend leapt up with a shriek, Ms. Sherry said, having realized that they were actually a cipher (a Caesar Shift cipher, to be precise), and that Cavan’s name was the first word."
"The letter directed the family to a hidden panel in the front hall that contained a beautifully bound and printed book, Ms. Bensko’s opus. The book led them on a scavenger hunt through their own apartment. But not all at once. The 18 clues were sophisticated and in many cases confounding."
"In any case, the finale involved, in part, removing decorative door knockers from two hallway panels, which fit together to make a crank, which in turn opened hidden panels in a credenza in the dining room, which displayed multiple keys and keyholes, which, when the correct ones were used, yielded drawers containing acrylic letters and a table-size cloth imprinted with the beginnings of a crossword puzzle, the answers to which led to one of the rectangular panels lining the tiny den, which concealed a chamfered magnetic cube, which could be used to open the 24 remaining panels, revealing, in large type, the poem written by Mr. Klinsky. (There is other stuff in there, too, but a more detailed explanation might drive a reader crazy.)"
More photos here.
Oh to enjoy this myself!
(Oh yes the mind is cranking!)
HRP
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