The Ultimate Puzzle
Posted on June 16, 2008 - Filed Under Cool Ideas
Eric Clough isn’t your typical architectural designer. Sure, he’ll design you a fine den or kitchen, but he’s clearly got a creative streak that goes much deeper than that. That’s why, when given the opportunity, he secretly built an incredible scavenger hunt into a $8.5-million, 4,200-square-foot Park Avenue apartment that included ciphers, riddles, poems and a lot of hidden doors and compartments.
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.
A normal living room … or is it?
A book with a narrative about a mystery, hidden behind paneling in the front hall, offered clues.
A rectangular panel in the den and guest room opens to reveal acrylic slices, far left, that fit together to form a cube. When the chamfered magnetic cube lodged above the slices is dragged over the 24 panels on a nearby wall, they open.
Decorative leather molding stamped with letters in a hallway can be popped out and wrapped around a rod removed from the foot of Ms. Sherry and Mr. Klinsky’s bed so that the letters on the coiled leather spell out a clue.
Behind a drawing of a plane that hangs in a hallway is a little niche containing a scale model of the kitchen, a clue that leads to a musical score written for the apartment, which is hidden in a drawer above the stove.
Millwork panels in a hallway were designed to look like Le Corbusier’s Modular Man and da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Puzzle pieces hidden in one fit together to make a key that opens the other.
Door knockers on opposite walls of a hallway initially seemed pointless. They can be removed and joined to create a crank that opens hidden panels in the dining room sideboard.
The custom-made sideboard has hidden panels on either side that can be cranked open to display keys and keyholes.
When the correct keys are used, hidden drawers are revealed.
The final treasure: 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 apartment’s owner.
Apparently, it took the family months to discover the scavenger hunt and weeks after that to figure it all out. It’s like living in a children’s book of some kind.
- Christian
Source: Gizmodo
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I’ve got to get this guy to help me do the Monday puzzles.
But then nobody will be able to solve them!
I’m sure Tien will figure it out somehow.