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9-5 Mysterious Buildings

An isolated cabin, and old manor house, a creepy apartment building. These make for great settings for mysteries and in this episode, Brook and Sarah discuss some of the most mysterious buildings.

Discussed and mentioned

“The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) Edgar Allan Poe

The Paris Apartment (2022) Lucy Foley

Jane Eyre (1847) Charlotte Brontë

The Wife Upstairs (2021) Rachel Hawkins

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) Agatha Christie

The Decagon House Murders (1987 in Japanese; 2015 in English) Yukito Ayatsuji

Rebecca (1938) Daphne du Maurier

The Sanatorium (2021) Sarah Pearse

The Retreat (2022) Sarah Pearse

And Then There Were None (1939) Agatha Christie

Devil in the White City (2003) Erik Larson

The Death of Mrs. Westaway (2018) Ruth Ware

Daisy Darker (2022) Alice Feeney

The Christmas Murder Game (2021) Alexandra Benedict

Only Murders in the Building (2021-present) Disney+

The New Couple in 5B (2024) Lisa Unger

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.

SarahWelcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
BrookAnd I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
SarahHi, Brook.
BrookHi, Sarah. Well, you have a little bit of a cold today, but I’m super excited that you’re still willing to record with me.
SarahWell, it would take a lot, I think, Brook, for me to miss the opportunity to talk about mystery with you.
BrookWell, that is fantastic. And I’m wondering, Sarah, do you have any experience with mysterious buildings?
SarahYou know, I don’t think so. One of the things about living in Canada and Vancouver particularly is that most of the buildings are very young and so they don’t have much of a history. So unfortunately, no, I don’t have much experience with mysterious buildings. What about you?
BrookNot a lot. My family were friends with a couple who owned a very large, historic home in the town I grew up in. And there were stories that things had happened there, but I didn’t ever experience any any happenings when I was there. But I do think that it would have been a great setting for a mystery story because it had, you know, the high ceilings and ornate woodwork, lots of cubby holes and cupboards. And today we’re going to explore some of the genre’s most iconic settings, those mysterious buildings that loom large in a narrative becoming almost like characters themselves.
BrookFrom abandoned mansions with creaky floorboards to modern high rises shrouded in secrets, mysterious buildings have long been a staple of mystery fiction. Many times these structures aren’t just backdrops either. They play an important part in the mystery. They give readers a sense of place and define the culture within which the story unfolds. These buildings may conceal clues, contain hiding places, include dark histories, and sometimes seem to serve as villainous forces themselves.
BrookWe’ll mention a selection of memorable mysterious buildings from mysteries and thrillers and discuss how they impact the stories. So, dim the lights, lock the doors, and let’s uncover the secrets hidden within some mysterious walls.
SarahOh, Brook, thank you for such a great introduction. And I’m so excited to talk about books and ah films and shows that feature mysterious buildings because there are a lot of them.
BrookExactly. When we talked about this idea for a show, we realized that the list is rather never ending. So, you know, we’re just going to kind of hit some high points. And maybe this is a topic that we’ll return to someday.
BrookSo the first example that came to me when I was thinking of this idea of the ah mysterious house is the House of Usher. Not necessarily a mystery, but I think with Edgar Allan Poe we can definitely include this. And this is like the quintessential gothic structure. It’s decaying and it symbolizes in the story both that physical and mental disintegration that is happening with the characters.
BrookIt’s described as ancient and crumbling. It has this big fissure that is just getting worse and worse as the story progresses. And um really, I think, gives that sense of dread and spookiness to the story. It’s not a subtle metaphor, is it? It is like this overt thing that’s like this family is falling apart, as is their house.
SarahAbsolutely. And that’s that’s a fantastic example. And, you know, I think that these like big Gothic buildings really lend themselves to that set up, right?
BrookMm hmm.
SarahAnother example that draws on that Gothic building is The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.
SarahAnd so that was published in 2022. And this woman arrives at this apartment building where her brother ah has been living and from almost the first page, you just get this sense of foreboding around this this building.
BrookMm-hmm, right? I think that you know what you said at the top about Vancouver being a fairly young city and I live in ah in a location as well like the west of the US is fairly young But when you think about those buildings that have been around for centuries, I just think that they enrich a story so much. So either like East Coast US, some of them have really, you know old buildings or of course in Europe. So, I think that’s a great example too, Sarah.
SarahOne that popped in my mind when we were initially talking about this was Jane Eyre, um which features a building with a a very disturbing history. And last year I read The Wife Upstairs, which is a retelling of Jane Eyre. It was published in 2021 and written by Rachel Hawkins. And so it’s modern day, you recognize a lot of the character names, and there’s a not the same setup, but a similar setup. And I enjoyed that. You kind of wonder, OK, what’s what’s going on here?
BrookAnd in the retelling, was the house still like that kind of key feature? Did you get that that theme?
SarahThere was, yeah, there was definitely some mystery, mystery around the house.
BrookYeah, that’s great. Well, my next example is Styles Court. This is from Agatha Christie’s first published novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles and it’s the classic setting for a locked room mystery. It’s rather than you know my other example, which was this decaying old house. This is a very stately English traditional home. But you’ve got the grandeur of it like the Cavendish family kind of wants to show off their wealth, but you do have the domestic aspect it’s definitely like their home and I think that that’s something interesting that happens in um stories sometimes too is like from the outside things look just like picture perfect but once you get behind the closed doors and um again that idea of the family might look great too, but then there’s all these secrets that are contained inside. So I think that Styles is a really good representation of then what we see over and over with the you know the country manor house mystery.
SarahWell, so you mentioned locked room. You did, right? You mentioned locked room. Yeah. You mentioned locked room. And um of course, the building is going to feature if if that’s what the the mystery is, right? And so an example that I thought of was ah the Decagon House Murders, which was originally written in Japanese and published in 1987.
Sarahit was translated and released in English more recently, written by Yukido Ayatsuji, and this is a locked room mystery about this iconic house ah because of the way that it has been built. And there were mysterious deaths in it. A group of kids decides to spend the night there because web what better thing to do with this you know supposedly haunted house. And of course, there are additional murders that result. It’s an excellent example of a locked room mystery and I highly recommend it.
BrookOh, that sounds so good. Yes, I love that these houses, like, and we see it a lot in Agatha Christie’s work where they’re designed to have, you know, multiple entrances and exits from her room. Like hidden corners or a complex layout. And, um, so that, that enables, like you said, it it is part and parcel of being a locked room mystery.
BrookAnother one I thought of was Manderley from ah Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier. She starts the entire book, the the first line of the book. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” I mean, the that’s how important the house and the grounds are to that story. And you know we have an unnamed main character who is she’s going to be the second wife of Maxim de Winter and Mrs. Danvers in the house. Mrs. Danvers being the housekeeper and the house just seemed like, you know, one unit to me. And the house is cold. It’s dark. There’s doors she’s forbidden to open. So, there’s that, um you know, again, that the house represents so much of what’s going on in the story and in that main character’s mind.
SarahThat’s such a great example, Brook. And yeah, when that when when the book opens with reference to the house, you know that the house is going to play an important part in the story.
SarahSo ah I read a couple of books by Sarah Pearse, and ah I read the first one because you had talked about it, The Sanatorium. And the second one is called The Retreat, and both of those books feature buildings that have histories associated with them, and they are remote buildings, so you know you’re going to have that set up of, you know, a closed circle, right, people who are isolated, and something is happening to to everybody in the in the house.
BrookYeah, I really liked the sanatorium and and an interesting feature I don’t know about the retreat but in the sanatorium it was as I remember an older building but had been refurbished to be you know new and sleek and like this you know spa-like atmosphere. And I like the idea of that, like, you can only cover up the secrets for so for so long. You know, you can only put so much facade over and then things are going to start coming out again. It was, it was a really great read.
SarahYeah, it’s a similar setup in in in The Retreat as well. And that had me thinking of another Agatha Christie book um And Then There Were None.
BrookAnd Then There Were None almost made my list as well, Sarah. and That house, um and even in some of the film representations that I’ve watched, plays such a key part in the way that story unfolds.
SarahWell, you’ve got all of these people who have been invited to this remote house. They don’t know why. And yeah, it’s it’s a great setup.
SarahSo I thought of a nonfiction example, and that is The Devil in the White City, ah which was published in 2003 and written by Erik Larson. And this is, I mean, it’s it’s a horrifying story. um And it’s about the World’s Fair in 1896 in Chicago, and H.H. Holmes, who constructed this house with the very evil intention of killing people in it. But Larson does a really fantastic job of conveying the mysteriousness of the house and handling the murders that occurred there very delicately.
BrookYeah, Erik Larson, I love his um nonfiction work. He always like juxtaposes two things that are happening simultaneously. So like you said, the World’s Fair is taking place and then also H.H. Holmes is becoming one of America’s first serial killers in the same city. And actually, I think that the World’s Fair helped him do this because there were all these strangers coming into town. Yeah, excellent book and such a fantastic example of a mysterious building. As you said, he constructed it just for the sole purpose of doing these terrible things and um definitely a mysterious building.
BrookAnother example I thought of ah was the Westaway House in The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware. And the reason I chose this is because I think even though the Westaway House is entering into that more old and dilapidated state because it’s hasn’t been taken care of for some decades. I feel like it’s an example of a later ah Styles Court because we have this like big family estate but now it has like gone by the wayside. But we also have in this story the the idea of doors that can be locked in from one side but not from the other and you know that plays such a key part in the Mysterious Affair at Styles that I remember when I read this the first time I thought oh this is sort of like what happens when they realize that that door could be locked from the other side.
SarahSo that’s ah one of the Ruth Ware books that i haven’t i I haven’t read yet, but I think I’m going to have to add that to my list, Brook.
SarahSo we talked about, and then there were none, another book that kind of draws on that setup is Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney. And in this one, the house, you know, a family reconvenes at the grandmother’s house and there’s all sorts of things that happen in this book and it’s it’s you know very mysterious and the house is a very important place for this family.
BrookOh, that’s great. It reminds me a lot of one of my Christmas reads, at least in the like general description, which was The Christmas Murder Game by Alexandra Benedict, same like we’ve got this big family home and it plays such a part and in that story they’re actually you know vying for the home itself like who’s going to inherit it. So that always makes a really fun layer if like the people are family or have their own history in the place.
SarahMmhmm, mmhmm.
SarahContinuing with that theme is um Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson. So this was a 2024 release and it’s a YA novel. And it features a ah ah dual timeline story. So the house was built in the 1920s and there’s a mystery that takes place around then and then a mystery in present day. The present-day character is trying to unravel what happened in the past. The house has been turned into a um summer resort and ah she’s working there for the summer.
BrookOh, that sounds very interesting.
BrookI wanted to mention something that we see on screen, and I think that the creators of Only Murders in the Building have done a fantastic job in forming the Arconia as the setting for their series. um And it was modeled after real life New York apartment buildings, even though the Arconia is fictional.
BrookBut it’s got that pre-war architecture, the sprawling center courtyard where people can come together. And it’s just it’s actually huge, right? It’s several different buildings. So that kind of gives it this maze-like feeling. It’s really easy for people to listen in. There’s even hidden passageways. And I just think that they’ve done a great job creating that and making it a perfect setting for a series of whodunnits.
SarahThere’s how many so how many um seasons have there been four now? That’s a lot of murders in that building.
BrookIt really worked out for those podcasters when they decided to stick to that theme, didn’t it?
SarahIt sure did, but I agree. It’s it’s a great show and um the building is such an important part of that of that story. And that reminds me of our most recent What Would You Do? book, The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger, which is set in a building that is, the the way it’s described, it sounds very similar to the Arconia.
BrookMm hmm. I agree. I when I was reading that, I you know was thinking of it. I would say The Couple in Five B is less upbeat and perky, you know, because it’s a very different kind of story. But it really helped me formulate a um image of what that building might be like.
SarahYeah, absolutely. And you know in Vancouver, we don’t have any buildings like that. So it’s nice to have that visual reference that we get from um ah Only Murders in the Building.
BrookWell, like you, Sarah, I wanted to include a nonfiction ah example. And so my last example of a mysterious building is the Winchester Mystery House. And this is an architectural wonder and historic landmark in San Jose, California. And it was originally the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, who was the widow of William. And she became the heiress to most of the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune. and In 1886, she lost both her husband and their infant daughter in very short succession and she needed to get away from Connecticut. So she decided to move out west to California and she bought a fairly modest eight-room farmhouse.
BrookAnd immediately began this continual remodel and construction until the day she died in 1922. So in that time, the farmhouse grew from that eight room um modest structure to a 24,000 square foot to 24,000 square feet, 160 rooms, 47 stairways and fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and six kitchens. The answer to why Sarah Winchester spent a literal fortune to continually expand her house remains a mystery. It’s said that it may be due to the advice of psychics. She regularly held seances in her home.
BrookAnd she may have been trying to atone for the violence that she felt the Winchester rifle ah was responsible for in the American West. And she wanted to allegedly keep evil spirits at bay by the constant sounds of hammering. But really we’ll never know the truth and this leaves the sprawling property just an enduring mystery. It is a tourist spot and you can tour the home and I have actually had the pleasure of going there twice.
SarahOh my goodness, Brook. It sounds incredible. And I love that you can actually um go there. And the other thing that occurred to me as you were describing it is that connection with ah the supernatural. And ah you know I think we often with older buildings make that make that connection.
SarahAnd um I don’t have a, ah there’s there’s not a a book that I’m aware of, but um there’s ah a website that at in October leading up to Halloween people share spooky stories. And I can remember someone had posted a video of a school actually here in Vancouver, one of the older buildings in the in the city where the blind the window was shut repeatedly by itself and and like you just kind of got this chill watching this video um and I imagine that you you just get that sense when you go into that Winchester house this like otherworldly feeling.
Brook100%. I think you’re right. We hadn’t mentioned the supernatural components of many of these stories, but, um, but that is definitely the case. And that is the feeling at the Winchester house there. I was, uh, reviewing some information about it before the episode and I now they have a nighttime flashlight tour. I don’t know if I’ll ever have ever have the nerve to go on that one.
SarahOh, it sounds like so much fun. Well, Brook, if we ever do a um mysterious tour, maybe that’s something we can put on our list.
BrookI think that’s a great idea.
SarahWell, Brook, it has been so much fun to talk about mysterious buildings. I think there are so many other examples. And like you said at the beginning, this is probably the first of a couple of episodes that we’re going to end up doing around this topic because there are just so many that we can that we can talk about.
BrookYeah, I think so too, Sarah. And we hope that you enjoyed today’s episode as well, listeners. But for today, thank you for joining us on Clued in Mystery. I’m Brook.
SarahAnd I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery.