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Beechwood Island
The largest and most important house on Beechwood Island, Clairmont represents—to the Liars, at least—the root of all the Sinclair family’s problems. After Tipper Sinclair dies, the Sinclair sisters spend most of their time on the island in Clairmont, arguing over their mother’s possessions as well as the wealth they will inherit when Harris dies. As the Liars—Gat, Cady, Mirren, and Johnny—rebel against the family’s growing obsession with wealth, they decide that the destruction of Clairmont could resolve all their problems. As it houses many of the family’s prized possessions and financial documents, they believe that they can reunite their damaged and splintered family by burning the house to the ground. The fire they start ends in tragedy, though, as Gat, Mirren, and Johnny end up trapped in the house and are killed. However, in some strange way, the Clairmont fire did eventually bring the Sinclair family together as they mourned the death of the three teens and helped Cady recover from shock. In the year following the fire, Harris builds New Clairmont, an austere building that represents a sharp turn away from the traditional and ostentatious home that had once been the family’s gathering space.
Clairmont Quotes in We Were Liars
The We Were Liars quotes below all refer to the symbol of Clairmont. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 3: Summer Seventeen
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“I started over with this house,” he says simply. “That old life is gone.”
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Part 4: Look, a Fire
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Look. A fire. There on the southern tip of Beechwood Island. Where the maple tree stands over the wide lawn. The house is alight. The flames shoot high, brightening the sky.
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Clairmont Symbol Timeline in We Were Liars
The timeline below shows where the symbol Clairmont appears in We Were Liars. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: Welcome
...She has been a central figure in the lives of her children and grandchildren, and Clairmont, the main house on the island, is filled with memories of her. Cady recalls a...
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Part 2: Vermont
...hand holding a jug of gasoline for the motorboats, Johnny running down the stairs from Clairmont to a boathouse, and Harris holding on to a tree while watching a bonfire. She...
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Part 3: Summer Seventeen
As Cady arrives on Beechwood, she sees that Clairmont, the main house on the island, has been completely rebuilt. In the place of the...
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...around. The Liars tell Cady that they will not be having their meals at New Clairmont this summer with the rest of the family.
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...wants with her time on the island, but that she is expected—no excuses—for dinner at Clairmont with a smile on her face for her grandfather, Harris. Cady ignores her mother and...
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...light. Penny calls from the hallway, reminding Cady that it is time to go to Clairmont for family dinner, but Cady refuses. Penny lists all the reasons why Cady should go...
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In the morning, Cady goes to Clairmont and has breakfast with her mother and grandfather. She asks where Fatima and Prince Phillip—two...
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...over, and they agree to do just that, right after lunch. Cady has lunch at Clairmont and gets a tour of the renovated house. She thinks the house feels too “sharp”...
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Cady suddenly has a recovered memory of a dinner on the Clairmont lawn. She and Gat are sitting next to each other, and Harris began to talk...
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Cady has a recovered memory from summer fifteen—she asks about a goose statue in Clairmont, and Harris tells her about how he and Tipper went to China and brought back...
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...in front of Windemere, just like the one that used to hang in front of Clairmont, that Tipper would swing Cady on when she is younger. She recalls squeezing into the...
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Part 4: Look, a Fire
There is a fire on the southern part of Beechwood Island. Clairmont is on fire, and there is no one to help. Cady can see firefighters coming...
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...ask about Raquel. One evening, as the whole family is celebrating the twins’ birthdays at Clairmont, Cady and Gat sat next to one another at the table. Harris came over, wedged...
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Later that summer, when the family was gathered for cocktail hour at Clairmont, Harris casually commented that according to Bess, Penny and Cady were probably very lonely in...
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...they were passing judgement on Penny and her sisters. She demanded that Cady return to Clairmont to tell Harris that she wanted to live in Windemere, but Cady refused. She told...
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...at her bedroom window. She came out and they decided to raid the pantry in Clairmont to find chocolate. When they got into the pantry and began rummaging for snacks, they...
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...to ask him a favor. He wanted Gat to stop coming to family dinners at Clairmont, and when Johnny refused to do his bidding, Harris withdrew all of the money from...
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The Liars began to fantasize about Clairmont’s destruction via a natural disaster, as a way for God to punish the family for...
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...in the garden of Red Gate and could hear Harris and his daughters arguing at Clairmont. Penny was drunkenly complaining about how she had to repeatedly win Harris’s love, and that...
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The Liars decided that Clairmont was a symbol of everything that was wrong with the family—Gat described it as the...
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...and throw it all into the pile. They would do this on every floor of Clairmont—Gat in the basement, Cady on the ground floor, and Johnny and Mirren on the upper...
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...is now powerless because of the slow onset of dementia, and Gat notes that New Clairmont—the one he built on the ashes of the old house—seems to be a punishment, with...
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Part 5: The Truth
...Gatwick Matthew Patil, Mirren Sinclair Sheffield, and Jonathan Sinclair Dennis died in a fire in Clairmont, caused by an upturned gas can in the mudroom. The house burned to the ground...
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Outside of Clairmont, Cady called for the Liars, but they were nowhere to be found. She told herself...
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...as that lost her time when she should have been getting the others out of Clairmont. She thinks about the life she wants for herself and the other Liars: a life...
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...hair with blonde roots, and doesn’t recognize the person she sees. She goes to New Clairmont to find her aunts making sandwiches for a picnic. Ed is there, and he waves...
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