Black Elm

**Black Elm** mansion and estate is the home of the Arlington family, located in Westville, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a two-story English manor surrounded by dark woods. Now in Darlington's ownership, Black Elm has undergone slow restoration with the limited resources he has and more often than not has needed constant repairs.

## Black Elm

### Inhabitants

* Cosmo
* Darlington
* Arlington family

## History

The Black Elm mansion and estate, located in Westville, New Haven, Connecticut, was built by Daniel Arlington I. Its architecture was designed to look like an English manor house, a common affectation of the first Daniel Tabor Arlington.

The estate originally contained all of the land down to Central Avenue. As the Arlington fortune dwindled, so too did the Black Elm estate land, with bits and pieces being sold off until only the house, its rose gardens, and the maze at the edge of the wood were all that remained.

### Under Daniel Tabor Arlington III

When Darlington was a child, Westville underwent gentrification. A sculptor from New York had bought up a run-down old home in the neighborhood for a dollar, demolished it, and built a vast open-space studio for her work. After convincing her associates to follow, Westville soon became a wannabe arts district, bolstering property value. Darlington's parents, Daniel IV and Harper Arlington, would try to convince Darlington's grandfather to sell the land, arguing that the upkeep of the house is a financial waste. Daniel Tabor Arlington III would refuse. When Darlington's grandfather died when he was 15 years old, the financial estate was left to Darlington's father, but the house was left to Darlington.

### Under Darlington

Although he was pushed by his mother to sell the house to Yale University, Darlington refused. Eventually, the electricity had been turned off, as the bill had not been paid and for a month and a half, Darlington lived at Black Elm with no electricity. Then, he managed to get multiple jobs that allowed him to live at subsistence. At some point, Darlington permanently took in the white cat the roamed Black Elm's ground, naming him Cosmo. When he turned 18, Darlington spent most of his inheritance and the money he saved from his summer job at the Peabody museum to fix up Black Elm. While he made sure to restore and furnish most of Black Elm's first floor, most of rooms on the second floor were closed up due to a lack of money. At some point, Darlington planted protective plant species along the borders of Black Elm as a defense against Grays. The spring before the events of *Ninth House,* Darlington had to repair the water damage in the ballroom.

In Darlington's freshman and sophomore year, he was required to live in the dorms, nevertheless, he visited Black Elm regularly. In his freshman year, he brought Michelle Alameddine to visit Black Elm, which only resulted in Darlington unsure how to respond when she asked its resale value.

### Ninth House

The night of Halloween, Darlington decorated Black Elm's front yard with jack-o’-lanterns lining the driveway, with the windows of Black Elm lit, and spent the early-evening hours handing out candy to local kids. While Black Elm was usually isolated from the world, Darlington was happy to note this change on Halloween, when strangers are glad to visit Black Elm for treats.

Darlington would return to Black Elm that night after the Manuscript Halloween gathering, although he would be drunk with the aftereffects of a Manuscript drug and blearily being led by Alex Stern. This would be the first time Alex had visited Black Elm. After dragging him up the stairs, Alex would guide Darlington into his bedroom on the third floor.

When Darlington disappeared, Pamela Dawes would care for Black Elm, although not part of her duties as Oculus.

The night of the new moon rising, Alex, Pamela Dawes, Michelle Alameddine, Elliot Sandow, and Aurelian members John Zelinski and Amelia performed a hound-dog ritual in Black Elm in an attempt to call Darlington back from a supposed pocket dimension.The ritual took place in the old ballroom. This ritual would instead summon something demonic, causing Black Elm to come alive with Grays not normally present, such as Daniel Tarbor Arlington III and a ballroom party of the first Daniel Tarbor Arlington. The wayward ritual would cause the windows of the ballroom to blow inward, glass shattering across the floor. As a a result of Sandow's interference, Darlington was officially barred from returning to Black Elm.

### Hell Bent

After the failed hound-dog casting last Winter, Sandow had Lethe board up the ballroom windows were boarded up and outfitted Black Elm with a security system, officially covering the front and back door. Pamela put one such camera in the ballroom.

Pamela and Alex attempted rescue Darlington using Scroll and Key's portal table led to Darlington being able to seek refuge in Black Elm's ballroom.

## Layout

Black Elm is a two-story mansion surrounded by dark woods filled with elm trees. Thick stone columns mark the entryway to the path to the estate mansion, and the path itself is lined by lamps. The drive way itself is long and made of gravel. The garden in the front had some hedges and skeletal trees. There are protective plant species along the borders of Black Elm, as a defense against Grays.

### Ground floor

The ground floor contains the kitchen, which has an entryway to the front of the house. The kitchen was made of a warm wood and patterned blue Delft tiles. It contained a big brick hearth, a stove installed in the 1950's that was made of creamy green enamel, and a kitchen island that had copper pots hanging from their hooks above it. The butler’s pantry, with its white cupboards full of dishes and glassware, and the big walk-in freezer with its metal door.

In the butler's pantry, there was an additional door in between the glass cupboards and shelves, which contains a wooden staircase that lead to an underground storage room.

In a separate room was the formal dining room, with its dark-wooded table.

Still on the ground floor was the living room. It had a large, black window looking over the garden, a great stone fireplace and an old couch. Adjacent to the main living room, was a smaller room full of big couches, a TV, gaming consoles.

It also has a garage that shelters Darlington's old Mercedes and a sunroom that ran the length of the first floor and looked out into the backyard of the estate. Just off the sunroom is Darlington's office, a room of wood paneling and packed bookshelves.

### Second floor

Most of the rooms of the second floor were closed up.

Darlington had turned an old ballroom into a makeshift gym, containing a speed bag hung from the ceiling, stacked along the wall were metal weights, medicine balls, and fencing foils, and heavy machines. The former ballroom had windows.

### Third Floor

Darlington's bedroom is located in a high tower on the third floor of Black Elm, as a result the perimeter of the room is round with a pitched ceiling. Smaller than the Dante quarters at Il Bastone, his bedroom contains a narrow bed, a desk with a desk lamp pushed against one curved wall, a yellowing newspaper the Thunderbird rollercoaster above it, a mini-fridge, a dresser, and a high-backed chair placed by the window for reading. Although there was no book shelf, along the curved walls were books stacked at varying heights. His window had a clear view of the house's driveway and garden.

### Backyard

From the first floor sunroom, one would be able to view the slope of the hill leading to the estate's hedge maze overgrown with brambles, and broken base of what used to be an obelisk fountain. Black Elm's estate, although originally all the land to Central Avenue, now only contained until the edge of the dark woods.

## Trivia

* Black Elm is the only truly fictional place in New Haven not based on an existing structure featured in Ninth House.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 *Ninth House* Chapter 13 (Last Fall)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 *Ninth House* Chapter 9 (Winter)
3. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 2 (Last Fall)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 *Ninth House* Chapter 10 (Last Fall)
5. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 13 (Last Fall)
6. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 15 (Winter)
7. ↑ *Ninth House* Chapter 11 (Winter)
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *Ninth House* Chapter 25 (Winter)
9. ↑ *Hell Bent* Prologue (November)
10. ↑ *Hell Bent* Chapter 10