Feel Like Living In A Puzzle? J.J. Abrams Does.

Imagine if you will, moving into a 14th floor apartment on upper Fifth Avenue. It’s a beautiful 1920’s era building with views of Central Park. The unit had been gutted to its bare naked steel beams and rebuilt from the skeleton out. Refitted with luxurious entrapments like 16th-century Belgian mantelpieces and custom furniture made from exotic woods.

It’s the kind of luxury that’s easy on the eye and a haven to come home to. Heck, this home even comes with it’s own book and soundtrack. What?

Would I, dear reader, fool with the likes of you? I think not. For this apartment is the brain child of Eric Clough, whose ideas about space and domestic living are more than the obvious, for it’s what dwells within the walls that makes this apartment worthy of it’s own book and soundtrack.

The unique construction of this apartment for Eric’s clients started with the germination of an idea to install a poem written by the family patriarch into a bottle. The bottle, to be sealed in a wall, much like a time capsule.

From there the ideas sparked from Clough as he delved into a world of cipher books, furniture makers and architecture and mixed it all together!

The ingenious result took four years.

The owners moved in without a clue as the apartment is perfectly functional and the “add-ons” blend in. That is until the first clue was discovered four months later in the form of letters that had been cut into the radiator grille in the room of the son of the family. The letters seemed random but they were actually a cipher that surprisingly, spelled out his name.

One year after they moved in, they received a letter that read like a poem:

We’ve taken liberties with Yeats
to lead you through a tale
that tells of most inspired fates
in hopes to lift the veil.

That clue led to the book that was hidden in the walls of the entranceway to the home. Hence, the treasure hunt began.

It is the most enticing premise that someone had the ingenuity to design such a home. It’s an even more potentially dazzling idea that J.J. Abrams is planning on producing a movie based on this 4,200 square foot puzzle. At the initial review of the idea, this house screams creepy ghost story in a unique twisty combination on ghost hunting and puzzles.

Things are moving along. Paramount optioned the newspaper article that I’ve based my tale on with screenwriters Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky for this puzzle project.

The writers have comedy backgrounds from shows like The Larry Sanders Show and The Simpsons. They’ve most recently been associated with projects like the comedy The Rocker, and the yet to be released feature from Dreamworks Animation called Monsters vs. Aliens.

The comedic backgrounds of the writers befuddles me because I was thinking this would inspire a sneaky, creepy movie, but then when you mix the writers with Abrams, you have to wonder what will come of this project that… puzzles me!

Source: NY Times, EW.com, Hollywood Reporter

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