Dan Brown, for his part, invested his Da Vinci Code fortune in a custom-built home near the seacoast in Rye Beach, New Hampshire, filled with the style of Gothic features one would expect to encounter in one of his popular thrillers. Push a button hidden in the library and a shelf swings open to reveal a display case. Touch the corner of a painting in the living room and a portal to a secret room appears. The inside of a bathroom door is decorated with a page from Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, written, as was Da Vinci’s habit, in backward handwriting to conceal its content. When the door is
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