Surreal Estate: Turning a Manhattan Apartment Into a Puzzle Palace

Surreal Estate: Turning a Manhattan Apartment Into a Puzzle Palace

The first hint that something was up came in a letter stamped "Lost Post." It was addressed to the family of six who had recently moved into the sprawling Fifth Avenue apartment—and was apparently written by a former occupant who had died decades earlier. Inside the envelope was a poem full of riddles, the solutions to which were all around them: The home was filled with puzzles that had been covertly installed during an extensive renovation.

The letter led the family down a rabbit hole of hidden keys, secret compartments, and glowing boxes. Today, more than three years after they settled into their magic kingdom, they still haven't solved everything—even with the book of clues that architectural designer Eric Clough planted in a wall to guide them.

The elaborate project started with a casual aside. "Can we do something for the kids?" Clough asked his client, the CEO of a private equity firm, when he began work on the $1 million-plus job. Nothing complicated at first, just a few hidden lines of verse. But soon the carpenters were carving ciphers into radiator covers and adding secret compartments to the credenza. "I kept sneaking back into the apartment and hiding a few more clues," Clough says.

Even after the family decodes the last brainteaser, the game won't really be over: Someday the special keys for the secret compartments will be lost. The veneer will begin to warp. Someone new will move in, and they'll be enthralled by the enigmas around them. "Then," Clough says, "they'll find these clues in the archives of Wired."

Mystery on Fifth Avenue

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