Hawthorne House

**Hawthorne House** is the home of the Hawthorne family. It was built by Tobias Hawthorne more than fifty years ago. It is located in Texas.

## Description

Hawthorne House is a sprawling, secret passage-filled mansion. Every room bears Tobias Hawthorne's touch. Tobias Hawthorne "bought the land the House is built on more than fifty years ago and spent every one of those years adding onto the architectural marvel he built there." The House is built on a hill, and is massive, sprawling, and looks like a castle. There are more than forty bedrooms alone, and even a four lane bowling alley. The many balconies have wrought-iron railings and the front door is massive. There's at least five different staircases. Safe rooms are scattered throughout the house, as are at least a dozen safes.

Hawthorne House is the largest privately owned residential home in Texas. Due to all the additions and secret passages, it's impossible to know the exact square footage. Tobias added one new room or wing every year. There are all kinds of secrets and puzzles of all sizes throughout the House. For example, every desk Tobias bought has secret compartments. Another example is the organ in the theater. If you play a specific sequence of notes, it unlocks a hidden drawer. There are tunnels that run under the estate and are like the secret passages in the house. Oren knows of two entrances to them. The tunnels are metal, like a giant pipe or something out of a sewer system, but are surprisingly well lit. Xander describes the house as if “an M. C. Escher drawing conceived a child with Leonardo da Vinci’s most masterful designs.” The House is so massive and sprawling, that even after living in it for three weeks, Avery still hasn't seen it all.

There are dozens of staff on retainer. They all receive a full-time wage but work on call. There are sushi, Italian, Taiwanese, vegetarian, and pastry chefs on retainer. The servants deep-cleans the house from top to bottom on Tuesdays.

### Foyer

The foyer is easily a thousand square feet. Stone archways line it on either side and the room stretches up two stories to an ornate ceiling elaborately carved from wood. Underneath one of the stone arches is a corridor with small square panels lining the wall. If you push a specific panel, turn it ninety degrees, push it into the next panel, and then hit at least two other specific panels, a door appears that opens into a coat closet. A secret passage entrance is located in the back of the closet. Down one of the corridors off the foyer is the theater, the music room, conservatory, and solarium.

### Backyard

The grounds are immaculately kept. There’s a fountain, a statue garden, and a greenhouse. Stretching into the distance as far as the eye can see is land. Some of it planted with trees while other areas are open. Visible from the office balcony in the East Wing is a heated swimming pool.

### The East Wing

The East Wing is actually the Northeast Wing and is located on the second floor. During the last few months of his life, it was Tobias's wing, and now it is Avery's. The first four doors lead to suites, each of them sized to make a king bed look tiny. The bathrooms have showers with built-in seats and a minimum of three different shower heads apiece. There's also gargantuan bathtubs that have control panels and televisions are inlaid in every mirror. The fifth door in the hall leads to the office. The office has six enormous leather chairs arranged in a horseshoe shape facing a balcony. Glass display shelves line the walls. Evenly spaced on the shelves are items that could belong in a museum. Opposite the balcony, at the back of the room, is a desk with a large bronze compass built into its surface. Behind the desk are shelves filled with plaques and trophies proclaiming the accomplishments of the Hawthorne brothers. If you pull the candlestick on the fireplace mantle in Avery's bedroom, it reveals a secret passage at the back of the fireplace. Libby's room is one of the suites across the hall from Avery's. Its bedroom contains a bed, a chair, and an ottoman, and has plantation shutters.

The self-portrait of Tobias Hawthorne on the stairs leading to Avery's wing is signed “Tobias Hawthorne X. X. VIII.” Avery realizes it’s the Roman numerals for the clues she found with the brothers. Behind the portrait’s frame is a button that when pressed, makes the portrait swing outward revealing a keypad. Entering the numbers one, zero, one, eight in the keypad makes the top step rise to reveal a compartment underneath. A piece of purple stained glass in the shape of an octagon is inside, and a verse has been etched into the wood.

### Libraries

The largest of the five libraries is a circular room with mahogany floorboards. Shelves stretch up fifteen or twenty feet overhead, and all of them are completely lined with hardcover books. The shelves are made of a deep, rich wood. Spread across the room are four wrought-iron staircases spiraling toward the upper shelves. In the library’s center is a massive tree stump that’s easily ten feet across. The tree stump is meant to be used as a desk. There’s a skylight in the ceiling. From floor to ceiling is eighteen feet. Three of the wrought-iron staircases spiral counterclockwise, but the fourth spiral clockwise. On the second-story landing of that fourth staircase, on the underside of the shelf opposite the stairs is a release that reveals a secret passage.

Another library is located on the second floor. There's a large stained-glass window on the east side of the room. The ceiling is slanted, the floor is wood, and the walls are lined with built-in shelves, each shelf being exactly tall enough for a row of paperback books. The books are well-worn and cover every inch of the walls, except for the east side. There's also the onyx library, the one with the globe, and the maze one. The sixth library is located in the Playroom.

### Theaters

One of the theaters is less like a movie theater, and more like an opera house. The walls are golden, a red velvet curtain obscures the stage, the seats are on an incline, and the ceiling is arced with hundreds of tiny lights along it. The next room is filled with musical instruments, including a Stradivarius violin.

### Garage

The far wing of the House is the location of a massive garage. It's closer to a showroom than a garage. There are a dozen motorcycles stacked on a mammoth shelf on the wall. There are two dozen cars parked in a semicircle. The cars were Tobias's "babies." The collection includes the Ashton Martin Valkyrie, three Bugattis, one of which is the Chiron. The key box is locked with a puzzle built like a Rubik’s Cube. To leave from the garage, a pad lowers the car down below the ground level of the House. A tunnel leads out to a secret back exit.

### Toby's Wing

Toby's wing of the House has been bricked up since he was declared dead, twenty years ago. The entire wing looks just like Toby left it. It has a long hallway, like most of the other wings. The floor is made of white marble tiles, and the walls are completely lined with mirrors. The mirror are two-way. There's a library, a sitting room, a study, and at the end of the hall is a large bedroom, closet, and bathroom. The bathroom has an enormous shower. The bedroom has a king-sized bed and an armoire with a secret latch that makes the lid pop up. Toby's wing is brimming with secret compartments. There are hollowed-out books, trick drawers, a false back to the closet, a secret passage in the study that leads back past the entryway, and floor tiles that hide secret compartments. The library has hundreds of books. Toby had eclectic tastes, with comics, Greek philosophy, pulp horror, and law books. The only shelf on the built-in bookshelves that isn't full of books frames a clock that's about eight inches tall and affixed to the back of the shelf. The clock face comes away from the wall, revealing a hidden homemade cipher disk. Underneath a tile in the hallway is a metal compartment. It's empty, but the poem titled *A Poison Tree* by William Blake is engraved into the metal.

### Skye's Wing

Skye's wing of the House has a long hallway with plush red carpet and gold moldings on the walls. Her suite is at the end of the hall. Inside the suite, double doors lead into the bathroom. In the bathroom is a ginormous bathtub, sitting up on a dais. It has gold claw-feet.

### Armory

The armory is hidden behind an ornate gold mirror. Behind the mirror is a steel door with a facial recognition lock. The entire armory is lined with reinforced steel, and doubles as a safe room and a tornado shelter. The whole family grew up shooting and Tobias was a weapons collector. He has the world’s largest collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Winchester rifles, several of which are valued at upward of four hundred thousand dollars. The collection contains at least thirty Winchester rifles. The Winchester rifles are in a wall of display cases. The room looks like a country club. The walls are lined with cabinets of deep cherry-colored wood. There’s an intricately carved table with a marble top in the center of the room. There’s a plush, expensive rug on the floor that looks like it belongs in a dining room. The door has three additional dead bolts on the inside.

### Playroom

The Playroom is located past Toby's wing. Tobias started construction on this part of the house when Nash was born, and was the boys' wing growing up. The hallway is papered with dials, keypads, locks, and keys all affixed to the walls like art. The room to the left contains a small airplane, an actual single-person airplane. A door at the end of the hall leads into the arcade. The arcade has a foosball table, a bar, three pinball machines, and an entire wall of arcade-style consoles. The refrigerator behind the bar is full of glass bottle with soda in every imaginable flavor. Tobias unveiled the Arcade Room the day Gray was born. Another room is the Game Room. At the center of the room are four black tables, a rectangle, square, oval, and circle. The walls, floor, and shelves are white. The shelves are built into three of the four walls. They hold games, maybe thousands of board games. Tobias was clearly a collector. The board games are from all over the world, some aren’t even in English. The one wall that’s not covered in board games has no door. Instead, there’s a fire pole and at the bottom of a slide or chute. At the top of which is the children’s book library. This library is small. The ceiling slopes to form a pyramid overhead. The shelves are plain and are only waist high. They’re full of children’s books. There’s also a window. On the back wall, between two shelves, is an opening to a secret passage. Through the opening is a staircase leading down. At the bottom of the stairs is a Davenport desk.

### Miscellaneous Rooms

#### Great Room

The Great Room is two-thirds the size of the foyer. An enormous stone fireplace stands at the front, with gargoyles carved into the sides. There’s a pair of wingback chars in the back. The Great Room has a stained-glass window that is eight feet high and three feet wide. Its lowest point is about head high. The design is simple and geometric. In the topmost corners are two octagons that match the octagon clue in Tobias's riddle. The window reveals a secret passage in the floor that leads to the underground tunnels.

#### Formal Dining Room

The dining room would be better named the banquet hall.

#### Surveillance Room

The surveillance room is lined with monitors. One of Oren's men is watching the monitors at all times.

#### Xander's Laboratory

Xander's "fourth-favorite" room is his lab, which he calls his lair. It's where he keeps his Rube Goldberg machine.

#### Tobias's Office

Tobias's main office has three rooms branching off from it, the Cigar Room, the Billiards Room, and a sensory deprivation chamber.

#### Piano Room

The Piano Room is a large, open room and is Nan's favorite. The far wall is filled with arches, and beneath each arch is a massive window. The other walls have paintings, and positioned between them is the biggest grand piano Avery’s ever seen. The piano has been made to be a self-playing piano since Nan can no longer play.

#### Kitchen

The kitchen is industrial grade with triple ovens and a stainless-steel refrigerator. Libby uses it to apology-bake hundreds of cupcakes after Drake shows up unannounced with the press in tow.

#### Spa

The room is L-shaped. In the long part of the L, the floor is wooden, in the short part it’s made of stone. In the middle of the stone section there’s a small square pool built into the ground. Behind it is a glass shower, a steam room, as big as a small bedroom with faucets attached to the ceiling instead of the wall. There’s also a gray velvet cot that functions as a massage table. On a nearby shelf is a row a candles. Light shines through sheer curtains and low and pleasant music plays.

## Known Rooms

* Toby's Wing
	+ Library
	+ Sitting Room
	+ Study
	+ Bedroom
	+ Closet
	+ Bathroom
	+ Hallway
* Jameson's Wing
* Xander's Wing
* Grayson's Wing
* Nash's Wing
* Skye's Wing
	+ Hallway
	+ Bathroom
* Zara's Wing
* Tobias's Office
	+ The Cigar Room
	+ The Billiards Room
	+ The Sensory Deprivation Chamber
* The West Brook
* The Black Wood
* Foyer
* Great Room
* The East Wing
	+ Office
	+ Avery's bedroom
	+ Libby's bedroom
	+ Two guest suites
* The Circular Library
* The Stained-glass Library
* The Onyx Library
* The Globe Library
* The Maze Library
* Stage Theater
* Movie Theater
* Music Room
* Piano Room
* Conservatory
* Solarium
* Formal Dining Room
* Kitchen
* Chef's Kitchen
* Gymnasium Wing
	+ Gym facilities
	+ Basketball court
	+ Racquetball court
	+ Rock-climbing wall
* Bowling alley
* Xander's Lair
* Wayback Cottage
* Shooting range
* Garage
* Surveillance Room
* Armory
* Ballroom
* Spa
* Driving range
* Underground tunnels
* Playroom
	+ Arcade Room
	+ Game Room
	+ Children's Library
	+ Airplane Hanger
* The Oval Room

## References

1. ↑ *The Inheritance Games*: page 20
2. ↑ *The Inheritance Games*: pages 70-71