Yes, the house that Ivy built itself. Its main structure is based loosely on a house I lived in during early childhood—before I finished first grade. It was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Its living room, kitchen, staircase, and hallway come to mind when I set scenes in THTIB, though of course it doesn’t have as many bedrooms. Also, there is the story of the trapdoor; after we moved from this house I convinced my mom this house had one. It mutated into a real trapdoor in THTIB fifteen years later.

This is a front view and a back view of the house I lived in after the Winston-Salem house. This house is in Wilmington, North Carolina, and it is the basis for Nina’s house. Nina’s house has two stories while this has only one, but the front yard where they rake leaves in Book 4 is identical to this house’s, and the back porch where everyone has their famous chat in Book 1 is pictured in the back view picture here. Nina’s house also doesn’t have these lovely vaulted ceilings.

Ruben’s Jersey apartment is laid out like my college apartment was. Pictured here is the communal living room, which was pretty much identical to how I picture Ruben’s, except that he has no furniture at all (picture that!). The room is big and the windows are on that wall in my story too, and the hallway leads down to the two bedrooms (mine had three). Sorry, not that interesting.

It’s Chamberlain High School! I went to this Tampa, Florida school for three years of my life. It doesn’t have an upstairs, but otherwise it’s a lot like Sands High in Book 2—Ivy’s school, also in Florida.

That’s Winter Park Elementary School in Wilmington, North Carolina. ::sniffle:: I miss it! I used to play on its playground and wander around in its hallways. I’m afraid I never ran around on its roof. This is the school I modeled Nina’s school, Kingswood Elementary, on.

Remember Book 2’s crazy bell tower? Sands High had one for some reason (though it’s actually pretty rare to have a carillon tower—suspend disbelief already, fantasy readers! Jeez!). This is Century Tower on my college campus, University of Florida. The left picture is the tower in all its majesty and the right picture is so you can kinda see in the windows to look at the bells. I’ve been in there. It’s really neat.

Also, the weird broken-down barn from Book 2 (where Ivy found Holly and Cindy Jane Perkins) is real. I found it with my sister and my friend Heather when I was 16, on a vacation in North Carolina. Inside it, there really was all kinds of weird stuff just like you read about in the book! It made quite an impression on me and I knew I had to bring it up in a book somewhere. This is it.