Secret Passageways

[duggap]

They still build them. My house in Daytona Beach, which I bought new from the builder, had a secret room in the attic. You opened the door by finding a secret electric button. The builder was going to use it for a gun storage room.

 

[FinalVestige79]

Oh thats awesome! I got some pictures from Allan Fea's book Secret Chambers and Hiding Places..which is actually a golden era book from '34 I believe! it chronicles the use of secret passageways and hidden rooms in England from the persecution of Catholics on through the British Civil war. Talks about priest holes, and and where to find them.

For the UK Loungers find this book online and go traveling, I am definitley!

The window seat is my personal favorite!

 

[WH1]

I seem to recall seeing on TV a bar, possibly in New York, that is only accessible, via the basement, behind a wine rack. I think they had to open it with a coat-hanger or something. Some speak easy of some sort I think.

Secret and hiding things in a speak easy, a thread in itself I'd imagine.

I may be mistaken but I believe that is the 21 Club in NYC, they still use the room.

 

[Senator Jack]

William Gillette was the first actor to portray Sherlock Holmes on the Broadway stage and he built this castle up in East Haddam, CT.

It's full of secret passages and intricate locks, and I recall there being a hidden study through a trap door. I'm unsure if they show that on the public tour, but a friend of mine was working there years ago and she let us in. Worth a visit if you're ever in that area driving around.

Regards,

Jack

 

[flat-top]

My grandfather built secret doors and passageways all over our house in The Bronx. I was born and raised in that house, and by the time I was in my nosey pre-teen youth, most of the doors and such had been boarded up or blocked. One that remained was a space through a narrow passage in the back of a closet that me and my cousins would hide in.
My grandfather died when I was 4, and many of his projects went unfinished. The creepiest to me were the labrynths he was excavating in the cellar. Nothing lurid about it...he was just an Italian immigrant who wanted to keep building stuff! But being a little kid in what was already (to me) a scary cellar, looking into those "caves" freaked me out!

 

[goldwyn girl]

When we were looking for a house we saw one with a secret room. You had to go through the garage and then a small whole in the wall. It was fitted out with plumbing and windows that over looked the pool. The same house had two parallel hallways, very disorientating.

 

[FinalVestige79]

My grandfather built secret doors and passageways all over our house in The Bronx. I was born and raised in that house, and by the time I was in my nosey pre-teen youth, most of the doors and such had been boarded up or blocked. One that remained was a space through a narrow passage in the back of a closet that me and my cousins would hide in.
My grandfather died when I was 4, and many of his projects went unfinished. The creepiest to me were the labrynths he was excavating in the cellar. Nothing lurid about it...he was just an Italian immigrant who wanted to keep building stuff! But being a little kid in what was already (to me) a scary cellar, looking into those "caves" freaked me out!

That sounds positively awesome!!! Same thing with my grandfather, he never did anything too elaborate, just a room hidden behind a bookcase to keep his guns.

 

[Miss 1929]

2 in SF...

I played in a mansion in Pacific Heights that had its original, Prohibition-era secret bar in the living room, concealed behind the paneling - lovely.

And, downtown, there used to be a speakeasy, which in the 50s became the Dawn Club (the first club to specialize in the Dixieland revival), which has a secret tunnel under Annie alley into the kitchens of the Palace Hotel. Rumor has it that Warren Harding had his fatal heart attack in the speak and was hastily brought back to the Palace via the tunnel.

 

[Diamondback]

This is one of the problems with "secret rooms and passageways"--you talk about 'em or show 'em off, they're not secret anymore.

 

[miss_smith]

My grandma's house has a secret passageway. The top floor is two bedrooms, with a landing in between them and a staircase coming up to the landing. The closets in the bedrooms are at the same end as the stairs, and over the stairs/between the two closets is a crawling size passage.
Like this:
Closet1--Passageway--Closet 2
-----------Stairs-------------
Bedroom1--Landing--Bedroom 2


My uncle used to make convert books into secret compartment-holder-thingys. I had one but I think I got rid of it.

 

[FinalVestige79]

I guess older generations were really into the hidden passageways. Maybe there was a need for them?

 

[J.J. Gittes]

EB - The speakeasy you are talking about is the 21 Club in NY. Its really cool how they did it, its the proverbial speakeasy with automatic shelves and such. And loose lips sink ships.

[/QUOTE]

Yup the 21 Club. My great Grandfather was Charlie Berns who was the owner. The cellar door is the only compartment left but there used to be dozens of others back in the day. My grandmother said that once Prohibition was over, most of the passageways were forgotten and closed off. The automatic shelves were gone after a expansion and remodel sometime in the late 30's when they acquired 20 West 52nd street.
The door is really quite an achievement, its huge and blows your mind. Its literally 2 feet thick and moves with a push of your finger. You would really never know.

 

[FinalVestige79]

Wow who'da thought? Thats really awesome! JJ! Lol wanna hold a international lounger meet there? jk.

 

[Viola]

I'm running over a few different ideas, but I'm not gonna tell you guys which one I pick!

I like the wall-safe picture frame...don't know how it would work for a secret passageway/emergency exit, though.

http://www.hideadoor.com/ This bookcase style has merit and classic good looks.

And then there's still furniture with secret drawers/false bottoms/whatever that shows up at thrift stores and auctions.

 

[FinalVestige79]

Well, for the wall safe idea...all you basically need is a picture big enough, and the wall needs to be thick enough and sturdy enough to hold a safe. Now if ir talking about hiding inside it thats a different issue. It is possible, personally I would use a wall mirror and either put it on hinges, pivots or slides up or to the side, and the cavity behind it connects to a a closet which in turn connects to a separate room. and the back of the mirror should have some type of handle so it slides back down ones you are inside.

Hide-a-door does great work by the way.

 

[jayem]

I have a friend who lives in a HUGE old mansion in River Forest, IL which is a very wealthy suburb of Chicago. Anyways, the previous owners were an old Italian couple who--rumer has it--had ties to the mafia. Anyways, the house was built in a very old complex maze like set up. Every room has a walk in closet. Every closet had a wall board that came loose and led to a tunnel that led to every single room in the house. It also led to a huge concrete cellar like room that you could NOT see at all from the outside.

My other friend living in the same neighborhood owns a house which has long closets that lead from one point of the house to the other.

I also knew somebody who lived in an old apartment that was built sometime around the 1920s. Inside one of her closets is a door that led to another small room. Story is that the original landlord built this so he could make his own liquor.

My house is very old (built around 1880) but not too unique with any secret rooms or passages or anything. The only thing we have is a storage closet that leads from my room to another room in the house.

 

[Viola]

Hide-a-door does great work by the way.

Heh, yeah, I like it because it's not like I'll ever be not in need of bookshelves anyway. I don't think I'm breaking any new ground on THIS board when I say between the books and the tchotchkes I love, I can always use display shelves.

When I was six, I read a Bobbsey Twins mystery where an old (and the book was one of the old, '30s copies, I believe, and it was written as "an old mysterious house" then) Victorian house with a large fireplace was discovered to have one of the inner, blackened brick walls of the fireplace be a door to a flight of stairs. This, as a little girl, completely enchanted me. So did Nancy Drew and The Secret Staircase - maybe I should blame those old hardback kids books for my current mental state, ha ha.

Of course as a kid I found my grandmother's apartment, which had one of those little half-doors in a closet, to get at the pipes, just about as fascinating, and I refused my dad's mundane "plumbing" explanation out of hand. lol

 

[FinalVestige79]

SAME!!! Those crawlspaces always made me think..."hmmm what could I hide in here...?" lol

 

[matei]

Oddly enough I knew two families which had "secret" rooms/passageways in their houses.

When I was about 8, my parents would drop me off to play with a kid who lived in the next town over (Bellport, NY). They had a large, two story house that must've been built in the mid 1900s. It was by and large an unremarkable house.

In one of the upstairs closets, there was a false back wall. It was actually a door, and when you would open it there was a narrow and steep set of stairs that led to another closet on the ground floor.

The family only knew about it because their little girl managed to somehow open the hidden door and go down the steps, but get stuck and start to cry. When they heard her voice coming from the downstairs closet they opened it but couldn't see her... and then realised that she was stuck behind it! They eventually got her out.

The other family actually lived in two different properties with secret passageways, both in Patchogue, NY. Their first house, built in the 1800s, had a secret stairwell that connected the master bedroom upstairs to the ground floor via a false door in the panelling.

Their other house, perhaps slightly older and much larger, had a secret passageway that ran along all the floors (3 floors, plus ground floor), via a hidden hallway that was accessed via panels in closets and false doors in the panelling. We weren't allowed to explore it, as it was in poor repair and unlit. We did go between my friend's bedroom on the third floor, and the second floor living room, as you could see where you were going if both doors were open.

Note that my friend's family didn't know about these features before moving into the properties - it wasn't like they were pre-requisites!

 

[Sertsa]

Years ago, I played for a wedding at a house that had an array of secret passageways. On the outside, the house appeared to be a typical 19th century farmhouse, but we were told it was once owned by a British spy. We were given a tour, which was pretty impressive. The passageways even had peepholes and slats to look into the main rooms.