We prove a strong form of the hot spots conjecture for a class of domains in ℝd which are a natural generalization of the lip domains of Atar and Burdzy [J. Amer. Math. Soc. 17 (2004), pp. 243–265] in dimension two, as well as for a class of symmetric domains in ℝd generalizing the domains studied by Jerison and Nadirashvili [J. Amer. Math. Soc. 13 (2000), pp. 741–772]. Our method of proof is based on studying a vector-valued Laplace operator whose spectrum contains the spectrum of the Neumann Laplacian. This proof is essentially variational and does not require tools from stochastic analysis, nor does it use deformation arguments. In particular, it contains a new proof of the main result of Jerison and Nadirashvili.