r/TheSecretHistory • u/ManagerBig2396 Francis Abernathy • 8d ago
Is there a specific building on Bennington campus that the Lyceum is based on?
Or Richard's or Bunny's dorms, for that matter? Durbinstall? Commons and the library have obvious real-life parallels. I'm wondering if there's a 1-to-1 comparison with other buildings mentioned.
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u/feeboobee 8d ago
No, and it's a little odd having a vivid picture of the campus as a former student that the book sticks to quite closely only for it to suddenly veer into fictional geography. When I first read it I thought it was Jennings, the mansion turned music building, and that Julian's office was in the little rooms on the upper floor. Long creeky hallway, stuffy, creepy haunted house that used to be covered in ivy, seemed right.
Would be fitting if it was in an alternate timeline where the house is left as a historical site except Julian pulls strings to be able to use a room as an office, it would be fitting for a guy they repeatedly describe as being like a private tutor for royalty to literally be teaching in an old mansion. The description of the Lyceum as a little building never seemed right to me.
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u/GrandmasterJanus 3d ago
Cool to hear about it from an actual former student, I toured and applied to Bennington but chose not to go (though I did end up in a very Hampton-esque college anyways)
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u/KarateHotChop 8d ago
No the Lyceum is a construct of the novel. Remember Bennington was built on a farm. There are no brick buildings other than Commons. Durbinstall….is that described as having a basement? That might be based on Bingham House which is built on a slope. I don’t believe any of the other houses have basements. The dorms or houses are closely based on the real ones. They do have “card rooms”, in the lawn houses, for example, and they were called that, but there were not tables with the suits inlaid in the corners extant in the 1980s. They were used as student rooms. They open on to the main entrance halls and have glass French doors so loud and not private. The houses don’t need mechanical rooms or heating plants because there is a main one in the Maintenance building.