Stonington - A Ouija board - the Ouija board? - sits on a side table in the deep rose cupola, within easy reach in case the need for paranormal inspiration strikes.

In the exotic, book-clustered rooms of the apartment, which takes up the third and fourth floors of 107 Water St. in Stonington Borough, a Ouija board might be easy to overlook if one isn't actually seeking it out. But, given that this is the James Merrill House, where the poet spent summers for four decades and wrote his masterpiece, the epic “Changing Light at Sandover” - which was based in no small part on communications he and his partner, David Jackson, had with spirits courtesy of a Ouija board.

”We're not sure if this is the specific one. He also drew Ouija boards,” said Roland Stebbins, co-chair of the Stonington Village Improvement Association Sunday as the group held an open house at the Merrill apartment. The association inherited the home after Merrill died in 1995. It decided to use the space as a facility for writers in residence. Since 1995, 21 different writers and scholars have moved into the apartment on a yearly or spring/fall seasonal basis.

The wonderfully appointed residence is virtually the same as Merrill left it. Almost as famous as the Ouija board is the wallpaper in the living room, a multicolored, faintly Asian design designed to match a patterned rug of Merrill's that was inspired by one of his collections, “Mirabell: Books of Number.”

The room also has a huge, gilded mirror that serves as a partition just off the entryway to the apartment.

A nicely appointed kitchen and a simple but decidedly apple-green master bedroom are across a narrow hallway, and the living room leads into the marvelous cupola that serves as a dining room and Ouija board repository. Through a closet-sized music room still stocked with the writer's substantial collection of classical music, is the office. A large wooden desk is tucked in a corner away from the window and a view of the water that could easily serve as a distraction.

Upstairs, in the sharp angles of the building's gables, is a large expanse that includes a grand piano and floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall that leads to a rooftop deck and stunning ocean views in three directions. A simple desk contains an extensive collection of Merrill's work as well as representative publications by the writers in residence.

Folks from all over New England wander through, seemingly as amazed by the richly and wittily appointed décor as by the aura of Merrill. Chopin's Concerto No. 1 in D minor plays soothingly, and one could be forgiven for grabbing a pen and pad and trying to throw down some AB / AB rhyme schemes. Stebbins said on a good day as many as 65 visitors might come to one of the open houses, and that they are typically well attended.

”My brother roomed with Merrill's nephew at Harvard,” said Elizabeth Savage of New York City, vacationing in the borough. After a morning at the beach, she saw a sign advertising the open house and thought it was a wonderful opportunity. “My brother always said the nephew wanted to emulate Merrill, and I can't wait to tell him I was here. It's a very interesting and lovely place.”

Langdon Hammer, chairman of the English department at Yale, who is writing a biography of Merrill, was the association's writer in residence at the Merrill House last spring. In an e-mail exchange, he said he found the apartment absolutely conducive to productivity.

”I could get a week's work done in a couple of days. It must be something they put in the water.

”I'm sure other writers have found that. But for me, Merrill's biographer, the house also worked on another level. Any time I turned away from the computer screen, my gaze fell on something - a view, a painting, a knickknack - that told me something new about my subject. It was impossible to get distracted.”

Hammer said he couldn't name a favorite room. “The magic of the house is how the rooms fit together,” he said. “All the rooms are distinctive, but they are connected too in a certain rhythm - associated with different activities, times of day, emotions. Merrill's poetry talks about that: how he and Jackson took down their Ouija board dictations, for example, in the red dining room, and then talked about them after in the blue sitting room, before Merrill went to work on the poem in his secret study.”

While the original writers in residence were originally nominated, they are now selected after an application process. The association puts ads in journals and professional publications, which helps get the word out about the opportunity, said Jane Keener, a member of the association.

”It's great to have them in the community,” Keener said. “Not only are they a presence here in the house and around the borough, but they also speak at the library and do appearances at the schools.”

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