Il Bastone

**Il Bastone** (also known as Lethe House, the House on Orange, the old Anderson mansion) is the main headquarters of Lethe House. It is a three-story mansion located nearly a mile from the heart of Yale campus on Orange St, New Haven, Connecticut. Made of red brick and stained glass, Il Bastone's sentience, amenities and protections make it a powerful headquarters and storehouse for hundreds of years worth of knowledge of the occult.

It was built by John C. Anderson in 1882, who put in a great deal of money into the project, only for it to be abandoned by Anderson barely a year later. Anderson claimed he was being chased out by the city’s high tax rates. Records held by Lethe House counter that Anderson left the house on Orange in an attempt to outrun the ghost of a cigar girl his father had murdered. Since 1888, it has been Lethe headquarters. To hide its true purpose, the house on Orange has masqueraded as a private home, a school run by the Sisters of St. Mary’s, a law office, and now as a private home awaiting renovation.

## History

Since it was built by John C. Anderson in 1882, the house on Orange has masqueraded as a private home, a school run by the Sisters of St. Mary’s, a law office, and now as a private home awaiting renovation. In actuality, Lethe House acquired the home in 1888.

### 1900's

In 1928, delegates of Lethe House did not maintain the portal magics of the Il Bastone Library in its six year cycle, causing all of the books from the collection crowded into the library at once. Ultimately, collapsing the floor and killing Oculus Chester Vance.

### Ninth House

When Alex Stern was first introduced to Il Bastone in the fall of her first year, Darlington would set the Lethe spirit hounds on her in an attempt to acclimate Alex to the dangerous magic they as Dante and Virgil will encounter.

## Magic and Security Measures

Il Bastone is sentient and has the ability to display its moods to its occupants. As a result, Lethe delegates do not need a key to enter, as the house knows who or what is welcome. For example, Il Bastone hummed with Darlington's entrances and seemed to release a creaky sigh for Alex. Outsiders of Lethe can only be let in if an occupant opens the door. When Blake Keely attacked Alex in Il Bastone, the house buzzed with anxious activity, flaring the lights and raising the static of the stereo. The house is warded against magical creatures, particularly Grays, and against theft.

Il Bastone is protected by Lethe's spirit hounds that take the form of jackals, which are bound to serve the sons and daughters of Lethe. They appear from under house, through the bushes strewn near the porch at the command of a Lethe member's whistle.

It is important to note that the wards against spirits are negated when a connection forms between a Gray and a Lethe member. The Gray can use small bodies of water to communicate.

## Layout

### Exterior

Il Bastone is three stories high, has a red brick exterior, and is decorated with stained glass. It is a city house, and thus closely neighbored by other properties only separated by an alley way. It is surrounded by a low, wrought-iron gate and a green lawn with bushes near the porch entrance.

### First Floor

Il Bastone's amenities were designed for the comfort of its inhabitants. Once inside, the visitors would be in the entry room, also called a mud room. Described as dark and cool, the entry room is carpeted, brightened by the stained glass windows throwing colored light, and contains the grand staircase leading to the second level, which is made of dark wood carved into a thick sunflower motif. Darlington describes the house as smelling like pine and cassis, which made "stepping into the house feel a bit like Christmas."

The first floor also contains the grand parlor, the kitchen and pantry, as well as the training rooms. The grand parlor is furnished with a velvet couch, with the piano, fireplace, and a map of New Haven above the mantle.

### Second Floor

On the second floor was the armory that is almost two stories high, with its wall of apothecary drawers, which is stocked with herbs and sacred objects. It is usually dark, having no windows inside. To open a cupboard, a Lethe House member must rest their hand on the desired door and wait for the House to click open the cupboard's lock. In the center of the room is Hiram's Crucible.

Down the hall from the armory is the designated bedroom and adjoining bathroom for Dante. With dark blue walls, the room was furnished with a high four-poster bed with heavy teal covers, an antique desk by the window with a Reuge music box placed on it, an armoire of white dogwood, and a fireplace. The fireplace was bracketed by a stained glass window more modest than its Virgil counterpart; it depicts clouds in shades of blue and violet set atop starry skies that, in the light, leaves bright patterns of blue and yellow on the polished floor slats. Its bathroom contains a vast old claw-footed bath tub and two standing pedestal sinks.

The second floor also consists of the storage and research rooms as well as the Il Bastone library. The library guarded by a bookshelf beside an antique secretary and a vase of dried hydrangea. The bookcase contains the Albemarle Book but also several other tomes. There is an old panel in the wall beside it that controlled a stereo system, although the system works only half the time and the sound of the speakers was often tinny.

### Third Floor

The third floor has more storage and research rooms. Directly above Dante's quarters, there is the corresponding Virgil bedroom and adjoining bathroom, which is twice as large and is described as more grand. Half of the wall facing the bed was taken up by a stained-glass window depicting a hemlock wood positioned so that as the sun rose and set throughout the day, the colors of the glass trees and the sky above it seemed to change as well.

When Virgil graduates, the Virgil bedroom is left ready for possible visitation.

## Il Bastone Library

Il Bastone's library is a particularly useful tool in research. A bookshelf guards the entrance to the library, beside an antique secretary and a vase of dried hydrangea.

The Albemarle Book rested on the third shelf and is the primary tool to retrieving from Il Bastone's vast collection of books and records. Appearing like a normal ledger bound in stained cloth, the Albemarle Book contains and conveys echoes of a user's most recent request. At opening, a user of the library would write out the date and their research topic of interest, after which they place the book on the bookshelf once more.

The bookshelf rattles and the house itself groans as the library retrieves a selection of volumes from the Lethe House collection. When the user pulls the right side of the bookshelf, it swings open like a doorway to a two-story circular chamber lined with bookshelves. The library had been set up with a telescope portal, using magic borrowed from Scroll and Key and implemented by Richard Albemarle when he was a Dante. The Albemarle Book would be named after the late Lethe delegate.

No matter the time, the sky through the glass dome above shows the blue of early dusk. The air inside the library is described to be balmy and smell like orange blossoms. At the room's center was circular table, the wood inlaid with a map of constellations. Phones do not work in the library, requiring users to take notes if not willing to take the entire text, as even taking a photo wouldn't work.

Due to its temperamental nature, Darlington warns Alex to not use the library on her own until the house got to know her. In addition, if a user wasn't specific enough in their request or if it couldn’t find books on the desired subject, the shelf would just keep shaking and eventually start to give off heat and emit a high, frantic whine. This can only be fixed with the Albemarle Book being taken off the shelf and a soothing incantation is murmured over its pages as its spine is gently caressed. The portal magic also had to be maintained through a series of elaborate rites conducted every six years, else all of the books from the collection crowded into the library at once.

The full collection of Lethe House was located in an underground bunker beneath an estate in Greenwich and consisted of mostly the history of the occult, New Haven, and New England.

## Real World Information

### History

Wealthy New Yorker John C. Anderson built Il Bastone in 1882. He only occupied the impressive mansion for a few years, complaining as he left of high taxes. Anderson was the son of the prominent New York tobacconist, John Anderson, who had died the year before his son built his own retirement home in New Haven. In 1841, the elder Anderson was questioned in a sensational murder case, after Mary Cecilia Rogers, known as the “Beautiful Cigar Girl,” who worked for Anderson in his tobacco shop, was found dead. Mary took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop owned by John Anderson in New York City after her father died. Anderson paid her a generous wage in part because her physical attractiveness brought in many customers. One admirer published a poem in the *New York Herald* referring to her heaven-like smile and her star-like eyes. When her body was found in the Hudson River, her mysterious murder became sensationalized in the papers. Anderson was questioned, partly because of his role as her boss but also because it was suspected his amorous advances were rejected by Mary Rogers. In any case, Anderson was never arrested or charged with her murder, and other theories, such as it was a mafia hit, etc. also took hold. Although, as Anderson aged, having died in 1881, he grew paranoid, claiming to be haunted by the ghost of Mary Rogers.

The 17,000 square-foot mansion is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places. The structure now serves as headquarters for the Jewish Society at Yale.

### Architecture

Il Bastone's architectural style is based on the architecture of the Second Empire, also known as Napoleon III style. By 1882, the extravagant style of the Second Empire was no longer in fashion after the economic panic of 1873 and subsequent depression, yet Anderson built the mansion in such style as his retirement home.

## Trivia

* In-Universe Notes
* Real-world notes

* According to Michelle Alameddine, the grand staircase alone was worth more than the rest of the house and the land it was built on.
* The Virgil bedroom has a vanity that belonged to Eleazar Wheelock.

- Lethe House was founded in 1898, a whole decade after Lethe supposedly acquired Il Bastone in 1888.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Ninth House Chapter 4 (Last Fall)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Ninth House Chapter 7 (Winter)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ninth House Chapter 26 (Winter)
4. ↑ Ninth House Chapter 21 (Winter)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ninth House Chapter 22 (Winter)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary\_Rogers
7. ↑ https://thehudsonindependent.com/school-news-hall-of-fame-essay-contest-winners/
8. ↑ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/31-days-of-halloween-the-beautiful-cigar-girl
9. ↑ http://nhpt.org/events/2017/5/23/john-c-anderson-house-2
10. ↑ https://dahp.wa.gov/historic-preservation/historic-buildings/architectural-style-guide/second-empire