With the bicyclic carbon framework assembled, the introduction of the remaining carbonyl functionality was addressed. Different d1-reagents either as acyl anion equivalents or masked carbonyl equivalents were considered. While bulky reagents such as lithiated dithianes gave no conversion, smaller nucleophiles such as methoxyallenyllithium or cyanide were added successfully to the ketone (Scheme 4). In all cases, the 1,3diketone was 'disarmed' by in situ deprotonation with NaHMDS. Unfortunately, X-ray and NMR analysis revealed that addition of all nucelophiles proceeded with the undesired facial selectivity. As all our attempts to obtain the epimeric tertiary alcohol were unsuccessful, we redirected our synthetic efforts towards 3-epi-hypatulin B (17).