The Mark Twain House is a Must-see Stop in Hartford, Connecticut

Though he is most associated with his boyhood home of Hannibal, Missouri and the Mississippi River region from which he took his pen name, Mark Twain actually lived for two decades in Hartford, Connecticut. It was there that he wrote his most enduring work, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and - least surprisingly - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

Today, visitors can see the house that Samuel Clemens built in 1874 and where he created so many of the books that made him famous. But the Mark Twain House represents more than just a literary landmark. It also gives us a glimpse into the era that Twain's own book dubbed The Gilded Age.

Built at a cost of $40,000, Twain's house was located in the Hartford neighborhood known as Nook Farm, which was already well known as a center of literary and political society. Among Twain's close neighbors was Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, whose home was built at roughly the same time.

The Twain house features 19 rooms, and is notable for its multiple gables and turrets and their brightly-painted brick exteriors. The detail work is unique as well, with jigsaw cut-outs of butterflies, flowers and squirrels - all part of architect Edward Tuckerman Potter's attempt to intertwine the house with its rural surroundings. The resulting, asymmetrical look of the building has often been referred to as "whimsical," and intended to be reminiscent of the riverboats of Twain's youth.

But it is the interior of the house that really impresses visitors. After the financial success of Tom Sawyer, Mr. & Mrs. Clemens hired Louis Comfort Tiffany and the famed craftsmen of Associated Artists to design the interior. The artist best known for his work with stained glass decorated the house in intricate patterns and designs. The carved woodwork and stenciled walls have been painstakingly restored to their original condition and colors.

Twain was fascinated by new technology. The house included seven bathrooms, complete with flush toilets. Two fireplaces are cleverly designed with split flues to allow windows above the firebox. And Twain was especially proud to have had one of the first telephones ever installed in a private residence.

Of all the rooms in the house, however, the one that will likely resonate the most with visitors is the third-floor billiards room. It was there, at a table facing a wall of bookshelves, that Twain wrote his masterpieces.

An Education and Visitors Center was built adjacent to the property's carriage house and opened in 2003. Visitors to the Mark Twain House receive a guided tour of nearly an hour, and can also view exhibitions of some of the center's 50,000 Twain artifacts as well as a biographical film by documentarian Ken Burns.Unfortunately, the $18 million cost to construct the visitors' center nearly bankrupted the entire institution. In 2008, the state of Connecticut and corporate donors helped the Twain House break even. But the recent economic downturn has left its future decidedly uncertain.