Puzzle Apartment

Matt sent me this article last week. It's a long one, but really interesting and worth reading until the end.

In 2003, the Klinsky-Sherry family in NYC bought a fourteenth floor, 4,200 square foot apartment on Fifth Avenue. They decided to have the whole thing gutted and remodeled, but didn't want to go for a "cookie-cutterish" look. They hired architect Eric Clough to do the job and were pretty hands off during the remodel.

After Mr. Klinsky asked for a poem he'd written for his family to be hidden behind a wall somewhere, Clough began scheming and came up with an elaborate game/puzzle hidden throughout the apartment. Clues were hidden all over the apartment.

A radiator grate with what appeared to be random letters of the alphabet was really a code with a message. Seemingly pointless door knockers on opposite walls fitted together to make a crank, which when inserted into a panel in another part of the house, opened a secret compartment. Letters hidden in a secret drawer formed clues to a crossword puzzle. Over all, a system of nearly 20 clues lead to the panels in a bedroom that hid the poem Mr. Klinsky had written for his family.

"Behind the panels, large white letters laser-cut into teal blue acrylic spell out the words of a poem written years ago by Steven B. Klinsky."

The family first discovered that their apartment had more than they'd imagined when one of their children's friends cracked the code written on the radiator grate. A few months later, the architect mailed a riddled poem that lead them to a secret panel with a book written for them about the clues in their apartment. "The book led them on a scavenger hunt through their own apartment."

Framed photos of the original interior of the apartment had clues written on the back of them.

This is just the neatest remodel that I've ever heard of. Can you imagine having secret compartments and clues hidden all over your home, a book and musical score written all for you? My mother loves puzzles; she would have really loved this house!