I have an extremely BASIC "idea" for a story...

[JackLuis]

I actually asked myself this same question a while ago - 'why DO writers/authors move into old/dilapidated mansions...?!'

Just you and your thoughts, without interruption, except for the whistling wind, maybe?

Would it work just as well going to some expensive penthouse blocked off by a floor or two and high security, from the rest of the world below?

Or an isolated lighthouse somewhere...

I think these kinds of places are bridges and at minimum a process of stepping away from the mundane that you - and others - are already used to, in order to get some perspective on a different set of possibilities.

It isn't trite. Because it leads the way to whatever the creative mind, and destiny or fateful circumstances and events, will bring.

It's the opening door through which something new can wander towards YOUR keyboard. And you are the official chronicle-writer of it.

Oh, Oh, a guy rents a light house, totaly automated, he just has to keep away the seagulls. He finds out that a hippy girl is haunting the place and pretends to be a ghost. He humors her and writes his book, "Hippy Humping".

Your welcome.