The Clubhouse
The Clubhouse was the Losers' Club's secret underground hideout in the Barrens, built during the summer of 1958. Designed by Ben Hanscom and constructed by all seven members—Bill Denbrough, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Stanley Uris, Mike Hanlon, and Ben himself—it was a camouflaged dugout with a sod-covered roof, a trapdoor, and a small window. It served as their private meeting place, the site of the smoke-hole ceremony that triggered shared visions of It's arrival on Earth, and the refuge where Beverly hid from Henry Bowers. The clubhouse physically shrank back to normal size after the confrontation at 29 Neibolt Street, and by 1985 it had been reclaimed by the Barrens, leaving only the mahogany door as a relic.
Design and Construction
Ben Hanscom conceived the clubhouse as an alternative to a treehouse, which he considered dangerous because children could fall out of trees. He pegged out a square of about five feet on a side in the clearing, and the group dug down roughly five feet, stopping before hitting groundwater. They shored up the sides with boards scrounged from the dump and from Zack Denbrough's workshop, using tools borrowed from Bill's father. The roof was capped with boards, then covered with sods glued in place with Tangle-Track adhesive, so that the entrance was invisible from above. A trapdoor and a small hinged window provided access and ventilation. The group added a mahogany door they found at the dump, which became the final piece of the roof. The clubhouse was so well concealed that Mr. Nell, the beat cop, sat directly on top of it during a search without realizing it was there.
The Smoke-Hole Ceremony
After the clubhouse was finished, Ben Hanscom proposed a ceremony inspired by a book he had read, Ghosts of the Great Plains. The Plains Indians, he explained, would dig a hole, cover it with branches, build a smoky fire inside, and sit in the smoke until they had visions that told the tribe what to do. The Losers decided to try it. They cut green wood to produce thick smoke, built a fire in a stone circle on the clubhouse floor, and sat inside as the smoke filled the space. One by one, the others were driven out by the smoke, until only Richie Tozier and Mike Hanlon remained. In their shared vision, they saw the Barrens as they had been millions of years ago, a tropical landscape, and witnessed a burning object fall from the sky—It's arrival on Earth. The vision ended with a forest fire, and when Bill and Ben pulled them out, both boys had torn clothes and bleeding scrapes, evidence that the vision had been physically real.
Refuge and Confrontation
The clubhouse served as a refuge when Beverly Marsh fled from Henry Bowers, who had chased her with a switchblade. She and Ben Hanscom hid inside while Belch Huggins stood directly on the sod roof, nearly causing it to collapse. The clubhouse also physically expanded during the smoke-hole ceremony, seeming to grow to the size of a ballroom, and later shrank back to normal size after the confrontation at 29 Neibolt Street, when the magic that had made the house seem larger was withdrawn.
Fate and Legacy
By 1985, when the adult Losers returned to Derry, the clubhouse had been completely reclaimed by the Barrens. The clearing where it had stood was overgrown with bushes and scrub pines. The only remaining artifact was the mahogany door, which Ben Hanscom found lying on the ground, covered with creepers. The clubhouse had been a physical manifestation of the Losers' bond, a space they created together that was both a hiding place and a site of shared power. Its disappearance mirrored the fading of their memories and the end of their childhood.
