HARTFORD, Conn. — It's a dark, distinguished and distinctive house. But it's in the wrong place.

It should be in Hannibal, Mo., or Calaveras County, Calif., not a leafy neighborhood in Hartford.

But that's where you will find the 19-room Mark Twain House, the residence of novelist, humorist and social commentator Samuel L. Clemens, his wife and three daughters from 1874 to 1891.

It was where Clemens penned such American characters as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

The three-story, multihued structure is the centerpiece of the Mark Twain House and Museum that draws 65,000 visitors a year.

It is a great place to visit if you enjoy Twain or old houses, but it is not a place that would appeal greatly to children.

It is where Clemens raised his family and wrote his novels "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

The house, a National Historic Landmark, is variously described as a High Victorian Gothic or Picturesque Gothic.

It features steeply peaked gables, porches and brick walls with patterns of black and orange paint. It was built of dark red bricks, dark red mortar and dark red painted wooden trim. The brick itself was then decorated in paint to provide a colorful pattern on outer walls.

One newspaper said the house was "one of the oddest-looking buildings in the state ever designed for a dwelling, if not in the whole country."

His neighbors considered the house to be a monstrosity. It was nearly demolished in the 1920s. But it was saved by preservationists and restored with some Twain furnishings and many simply linked to that period.

The house was built to Clemens' specifications and was decorated in part by Louis Comfort Tiffany of Tiffany lamp fame.

At that time, Clemens was well-off financially, in part because of his wealthy wife, Olivia, or Livy.

It was a house that Clemens said "had a heart and a soul and eyes to see us with."

He worked largely in a third-floor billiard room that opened on three sides to balconies. The high-ceilinged room is decorated, on marble panels and on the ceiling, with billiard cues, cigars and pipes.

Clemens loved his billiards and cigars. He often awakened the butler in the middle of the night to play more billiards.

Other original items include Clemens' ornate Venetian bed and an intricately carved mantel from a Scottish castle.

Clemens loved new gadgets. He installed a primitive telephone in the entrance hall, and "Life on the Mississippi" is said to be the first novel written on a typewriter.

The family had seven servants to care for them.

Clemens had moved from Buffalo, N.Y., to Connecticut in 1871, largely to be closer to his Hartford-based publisher, the American Publishing Co.

Clemens and his wife were attracted to the so-called Nook Farm area of Hartford that was home to the city's literary, religious and political leaders.

One of his neighbors was abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Another neighbor was actor William Gillette, who occupied Gillette Castle.

The Clemens family rented a house and began working with New York architect Edward Tuckerman Potter on the design of the house that featured views of the then-open countryside.

The house cost more than the Clemens had budgeted, and several rooms remained unfinished.

In 1881, after the financial success of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and lecture tours, the family had the kitchen enlarged and the major rooms redecorated by Associated Artists, a firm of interior designers that included Tiffany.

After suffering financially from bad investments in a typesetting machine, Clemens and his family moved in 1891 from Hartford to Europe, where he lectured. The house was sold in 1903.

The family returned to the United States in 1900 and settled in Stormfield, Conn. Clemens died in April 1910.

The Museum Center — it opened in late 2003 — features two galleries, a classroom, a theater where visitors can view a Ken Burns documentary on Mark Twain's life and a cafe. The Museum Center is prominently filled with 30 Twain quotes — funny, pithy and hard-hitting.

There is even a gift shop filled with books by and about Mark Twain. You will even find a collection of Mark Twain T-shirts and other Twain memorabilia.

The house and museum are at the center of Mark Twain Days, an event celebrated at locations across Hartford on Labor Day weekend.

Nearby, just across a grassy yard, is the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, a separate operation that's also worth a visit. It is dedicated to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and 30 other books and countless articles, many on the science of housekeeping and women's rights.

She lived in Hartford from 1873 until her death in 1896.