The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet include drawings, charts, and lists accompanying the written elements. These drawings are purported to be done by T.S. himself, who also provides each with an explanatory caption that deepens the book's narrative. This is designed to mimic T.S.'s own habit of quantifying the world around him using cartography. Larsen has stated that this technique was not originally intended to be included in the book's format, finishing a complete first draft of the work before he "discovered the margins as a playground of T.S.’s mind." Larsen's parents were both visual artists (his mother a painter and photographer, his father a printmaker),
The Pavilion (Vermont) building was designed by Sylvanus Baldwin, representative for Montpelier in the Vermont General Assembly and a self-taught architect-builder who also designed the first Vermont State House sited roughly on the site of the present Vermont Supreme Court. Shortly after construction Davis sold the hotel to Mahlon Cottrill who greatly enlarged the building, rebuilding it in the Greek Revival style. Cottrill established the name "The Pavilion," and added piazzas on the south and west sides as in the present building. In 1874 Theron O. Bailey acquired the hotel, razed the second building and erected a new ninety-guestroom Pavilion, adding two full