Play House on the Hill Solitaire Online — Two Decks, Split Foundations

House on the Hill is House in the Wood with a twist in the foundations. Two decks are dealt face up into thirty-four fans of three and one of two; fans build up or down in suit one card at a time, and an empty fan is never refilled. Of the eight foundations, one of each suit builds up from the ace and the other down from the king. There is no stock and no redeal. Bank all 104 cards to win.

Setup

Shuffle two decks together. Deal three cards face up to each of thirty-four fans and two to a thirty-fifth. Above the fans leave eight foundation spaces: four marked for the ace, four for the king. The empty king piles show a K so you can tell them apart before anything is banked.

Rules

• Ace foundations (one per suit) build up in suit from the ace to the king.
• King foundations (one per suit) build down in suit from the king to the ace. Neither kind turns the corner.
• Fans build up or down in suit, one rank at a time, no wrapping.
• Only the exposed card of a fan is in play: the last card dealt to it, on top of the spread.
• One card at a time. A packed sequence never travels as a unit.
• Spaces take nothing. An emptied fan stays empty.
• No redeal. The game ends when no move remains.
• Win when all eight foundations hold thirteen cards.

Strategy

The split foundations mean every rank is wanted somewhere from the start. In House in the Wood a king is dead weight until its suit has climbed to the queen; here a king founds a pile at once, and queens and jacks follow it down. The game is about deciding, suit by suit, which copy of each card goes up and which goes down.

• Open both piles of a suit early. An exposed ace or king founds a pile with no preparation. Once a suit has both piles open, its middle ranks can be banked from either end.
• Send twins in opposite directions. Each rank appears twice. Plan for one copy to climb the ace pile and the other to descend the king pile, and the two piles will meet in the middle.
• Watch for the meeting point. When a suit's ace pile has reached the seven and its king pile the eight, every remaining card of that suit is bankable at once. Clearing a suit like this frees fans in a rush.
• Build to expose, not to tidy. A build is only worth making if it uncovers a card a foundation wants or empties a fan you no longer need. The hint prefers exactly those moves.
• Reverse freely. Up-or-down building means most builds can be undone by moving the card back. Use a neighbour as a temporary shelf.
• Keep single-card fans. They are hosts for both a higher and a lower card of their suit; an empty fan hosts nothing.

Where It Sits in the Fan Family

House on the Hill is House in the Wood with the second foundation of each suit turned round. It is the only member of the Fan line on this site with foundations running both ways, and the split is what makes its two-deck board feel quicker than its parent's.

Other Games to Try

• House in the Wood — the same board, all foundations up from the ace
• Clover Leaf — one deck with the red suits built down from the king
• La Belle Lucie — the classic one-deck Fan with reshuffles
• Trefoil — the aces already up

About This Online Version

House on the Hill runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer and it works offline. You get unlimited undo, a hint button that names a legal move, statistics that track your wins and times, and seeded deals: every game has a seed you can replay, so a board you enjoyed (or lost) can be played again exactly.