Comments (38)

1. When we were little, my sister and I stumbled across one in her room! Well, really it was more of a ventilation shaft that was no longer used, but it led from her room to the attic. I remember thinking that it was the greatest adventure, finding that shaft. My dad didn’t agree. He stuffed it with insulation and plastered over it.

   posted by Kieran on 9-29-2009 at 10:29 am

2. I made the comment to my husband a couple of weeks ago that I’d like to live in a house with hidden passageways…it’s so mysterious! My parents have a room under the stairs in their house, but I never really considered it to be “hidden” since there’s an obvious door to the room.

   posted by Patty on 9-29-2009 at 10:36 am

3. I used to frame houses for a living. We once built a massive custom home for someone. The plans called for a secret room to be built in the middle of the house. Not sure what they were going to do with the room. I’m just glad they didn’t have us all killed after we finished the house.

   posted by Will on 9-29-2009 at 10:46 am

4. A client of mine has a nice office full of antiques and such for meetings, with a secret passage that leads to his real (messy) office and a bathroom. When I build my dream house I’m stealing that idea!

   posted by MGTerry on 9-29-2009 at 10:54 am

5. The Bio Science Building at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta Canada is full of hidden passages and oddities. My favorite is a classroom that is only accessible via a closet.

   posted by James on 9-29-2009 at 10:57 am

6. There was a secret passageway in the house I grew up in. It went from my bedroom to the mud room, which was right by the front door. I thought it was cool when I was younger, but sadly we moved before I could put it to use as a way to sneak out of the house when I was a teenager.

   posted by kate on 9-29-2009 at 11:05 am

7. In the summer of ’78 I was walking through the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. I had managed to get in between tour groups so I was wandering the rooms and corridors all alone. In what I call “the map room” a wooden wall panel with a painted map stood slightly ajar. Behind it was a bare stone passage, at the end of which was a grille high in the wall. That grille looked out over the main hall below, and the acoustics were such that I could hear the conversations of the tourists in the hall below.

   posted by Steve on 9-29-2009 at 11:07 am

8. I always heard that Casa Loma in Toronto has secret passages you can explore but the one time I went for the tour, it was too close to closing and they wouldn’t let us in.

   When I was a kid I wanted to live in an old manor like the Clue house…

   posted by ab on 9-29-2009 at 11:10 am

9. My Great Aunts house was part of the Underground Railroad and is today on the registry of historic places. In the basement there was a hidden tunnel that connected her house to another house. The tunnel caved in years ago but it was always fun being in the house because of all the history and mystery.

   posted by Chris on 9-29-2009 at 11:15 am

10. A friend of mine had a house in Ranelagh (Dublin/Ireland)with a secret passage from the fireplace down under the road to the hearth in the house opposite. While it was bricked up he told me it was because Padraig Pearse (Irish freedom fighter in 1916) used to own the house and was there to escape British forces if needed. No idea if that was actually true but I am sure that the passage exists/ed – you could hear the hollowness banging on the back of the hearth and I knew the family opposite also…plus my friend was no liar. Oakley Road for anyone who knows it. But you will pry house number/name details from my cold, dead fingers.

    posted by Domhnall on 9-29-2009 at 11:35 am

11. At my old college, hidden in the behind the stage storage, behind years of theatre props and such was the entrance to the top of the buildings steeple. I was probably the 1st person in over 20+ years to climb the ladder up there.

    posted by Andy on 9-29-2009 at 11:38 am

12. One of my local bars apparently wants drunks to pee on themselves.

    They disguised the entrances to the bathrooms in a wall of bookshelves.

    posted by Troy H on 9-29-2009 at 11:49 am

13. My dad, a carpenter, was finishing up some renovation work in a house where two young twin girls lived. He made them a hidden passageway under the stairs. He told me later that he almost forgot tell their parents about it!

    posted by Ranger J on 9-29-2009 at 12:11 pm

14. The mansion from the movie “Clue” is the Biltmore Estates in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s filled with secret passages, including all the ones from the movie.

    posted by David on 9-29-2009 at 12:12 pm

15. I can tell this secret now that my father has passed away and my mother moved from the house I am about to describe…

    The stairs to the basement in their house were built into a four-foot-wide opening to the basement, with concrete walls on either side. Dad constructed a new set of wooden stairs that was hinged at the top. In a hidden panel in the ceiling of the basement was an electric winch. Hidden with the winch was an eye bolt which screwed into a hidden hole in the front of the steps.

    Once hoisted up, the stairs revealed a hidden space with a safe. I was sworn to secrecy at the time.

    I wonder if the new owners even know if the space exists?

    posted by Gordon Daily on 9-29-2009 at 12:12 pm

16. As my wife and I were house shopping we visited a home custom made by the owner over several years. It had many fascinating ideas one of which was a book case was along a curved wall. It was also was a door to the secret study.

    posted by Harper, MD on 9-29-2009 at 12:20 pm

17. I recall an episode of the tv show Webster back in the mid 80s where the little guy finds a hidden passageway behind the clock in the living room. He opens it and climbs up the ladder to the attic, where he finds a rocking chair with a girl in it with long blonde hair. It is very creepy as the chair is going back and forth with her hair blowing from an open window. Ends up it is just a doll sitting in the chair, but I remember the whole scene freaking me out as a kid!

    posted by JW on 9-29-2009 at 12:24 pm

18. I have reoccuring dreams about living in a house with a secret passageway through the attic and back down into the house. I can’t wait until I can FINALLY afford to buy a place and actually put on in.

    And, I love knowing there are dorks just like me out there lol.

    posted by melly on 9-29-2009 at 12:36 pm

19. My family lived in a house that had an obviously sealed up area in the stone basement. We are fairly certain there was a tunnel at one time because the neighbors across the street could hear the sounds very clearly depending on which part of the house we were in. There was also an inn very nearby that burned down, and supposedly there were tunnels there too.

    posted by Hyacinth on 9-29-2009 at 12:36 pm

20. There’s a strange little room in my barn. The barn was built 100 years ago, so maybe the room was there for that long too. It’s more of a little hideaway than a room, really. It has a little kid’s chair and a desk. The mysterious thing about it is that we can’t find any entry way. It has a little window, but no visible doors. A kid might be able to fit through the window, but how did the chair and desk get there? Hmmmmmm….

    posted by Carli on 9-29-2009 at 12:46 pm

21. My uncles are contractors and they design and build homes and cottages for rich people. One house had numrous hidden passage ways between rooms and hidaways for their stuff, like a sliding wall instead of a closet to hide the coats and boots. You wouldn’t know it was there unless someone showed you how to open it. There was also a secret room attached to the master bedroom.

    posted by Laura on 9-29-2009 at 1:07 pm

22. David — Clue was not filmed at Biltmore. It was filmed in a studio (per IMDB and wiki)

    posted by Melissa on 9-29-2009 at 1:35 pm

23. I attended a college in England in an old mansion that was rife with hidden passages, from simple staircases that led from room floor to floor or disguised doorways. Many were hidden maintenance halls. My favorite was the hidden coal tunnel (no longer used). Crawling through it one afternoon, I discovered that it lead to a wall in the college president’s cottage and I could hear everything said.

    posted by Steven on 9-29-2009 at 1:39 pm

24. My parents live in a WAY haunted house, and there’s a secret room upstairs, accessible only from the attic. There are no doors to the room: you have to enter through the ceiling. Once you’re in there, the only way out is to CLIMB the 8-foot, featureless wall. It’s the spookiest room/trap ever.

    posted by Jon on 9-29-2009 at 2:00 pm

25. I’ve been in the homes of 2 different couples who’d designed secret rooms into their house. The first: I was a guest and doing laundry. I noticed that when I turned on the light, I could hear a fan running…but there was no fan in the laundry room. Later, I was sitting in the room next door, facing the open closet and saw the nearly concealed outline of a door at the back of the closet- I asked my friend and was shown a room where her hubby kept his guns. The fan I’d heard was the ventilation for that room.
    The second is a small room that functions as a safe in the furnished basement of some friends. I love stuff like this!

    posted by ann on 9-29-2009 at 2:03 pm

26. I love this! Such a cool way to have your room be different from the others!

    posted by Kristen on 9-29-2009 at 2:24 pm

27. I have a few items.

    My university has steam tunnels underground behind locked doors. They can be used to access various buildings without going outdoors and include cool bizarre areas (a powerhouse – that reminds me of the silent film “modern times” with piping and grinding and heat), an old nuclear generator (behind locked doors), etc…

    A hotel we went to in Vermont had a secret passage/staircase behind a mirror in the breakfast nook. It went upstairs to a back hallway off a few hotel rooms.

    One day I noticed an unusual cut in sheet rock in my basement laundry room. I pulled off the panel and found an underground chamber housing a huge rock under a corner of my house. Although it is humid, it would be a great place to hide a safe.

    posted by Stew on 9-29-2009 at 2:26 pm

28. We have one in our house that is really just a closet but it looks like just a wall. You have to move a family portrait to open it.

    posted by Tawnya on 9-29-2009 at 2:26 pm

29. My previous house didn’t have a hidden passage way but it did have a hidden room. In one of the spare bedrooms, when the realtor opened the closet door, we were faced with really nice deep shelves (no place to hang clothes). She then released some catch and pushed the shelves in and revealed a small room. That was cool!

    posted by Fran on 9-29-2009 at 3:30 pm

30. If I had a secret passageway, it would not lead me to rusty pipes.

    posted by Nadine on 9-29-2009 at 3:57 pm

31. I’ve always wanted a house with secret passages (mys husband too.) In my case I think it was my obsession with Sleeping Beauty when I was younger – you know the secret passage behind the fireplace?

    If we ever get to build a dream home, we’re going to include all sorts of secret rooms and tunnels, then not tell our kids about them – let them discover them on their own!

    posted by Leah on 9-29-2009 at 4:04 pm

32. I worked for several years at a camp known for its Castle. It was built by a wealthy family in the 20s as their summer home. There were 3 secret passages, only one of which is open to the public: one of the bookcases in the library opens up to reveal the hallway leading to the chapel (see the link in my name for floor plans). The second is still usable, but only if you have a key. It leads from a closet off the entrance hallway to a small balcony overlooking the great hall. The third has long been sealed off, but it did lead from the chapel down to the bunkhouse.

    posted by Mirandom on 9-29-2009 at 7:04 pm

33. The university near my grandfather’s (University of Waterloo) has a number of not terribly secret tunnels – there’s a way to get entirely around campus by only walking outside for a half dozen steps. However, lots of people don’t know about them, and thus miss how incredibly handy they are for students in the winter.

    posted by Anaximander on 9-29-2009 at 7:17 pm

34. In Downtown Tulsa, OK, there are a few skyscrapers that were built by oilmen in the 20′s that have underground tunnels connecting them. There was a rash of people kidnapping wealthy businessmen to hold for a ransom, so these tunnels were constructed so they could walk between offices with greater safety. Wadie Phillips built the first one between the Philtower and the Philcade if I’m not mistaken.

    posted by Raymond on 9-29-2009 at 8:04 pm

35. my grandma lived in a really big really old house. it had all sorts of strange things going on in it. there where these things in the wall that you could talk into and if a person was upstairs at the other one they could here you like an intercom, but of course not electric it was kind of creepy too because they were built into crucifixes that you had to move to the side to talk into the hole.

    on the third floor there were 2 bedrooms that were connected via the closets, you went into the closet in one room then there was a very small passage way that would lead into the other room!

    this house really was huge must have had 10 bedrooms. anyways they had converted the third floor into an apartment for one of my aunts and her son (they had the connected closet rooms) and for some reason that i was never told they had completely blocked off a room, they had it plastered over we used to knock on the walls and you could here it was hollow…and none of the adults would tell us why…creeeeeepy still dont know why to this day

    posted by crazy house on 9-29-2009 at 10:14 pm

36. When I was in high school we once found a door in the ceiling of a hallway that connected the stage and a classroom. We went up there and there was a big open area between the walls but it didn’t have much of a floor or anything. So we dragged plywood up there to make a floor, brought up furniture, lights, cards, books, etc, and poked holes in the walls so we could see both into the stage and the classroom. Then we put a padlock on the door and distributed a few keys amongst ourselves. It became our little clubhouse within the walls of the high school. It was pretty awesome. Unfortunately the school remodeled a few years after we left and I hear its gone now.

    posted by Ryan on 9-30-2009 at 3:13 am

37. When I was a little kid, I used to go to my cousin’s house often. Almost every time I went, We would clear room in the cabinet where they kept all of the board games. He would open the cabinet, show it empty, then I would walk right in. He would close it, and there was an opening to the outside of the house. (I don’t know why there was a passageway from a cabinet to outside, but it had a lock on it, so it must have had some use.) Anyway, he would close it, I would climb out, he would count to three, and I wouldn’t be there anymore. Then I would reappear. I was amusing at the time, even though we did it so often.

    posted by nh344 on 10-3-2009 at 7:43 pm

38. In the 1980′s I was invited to visit a large home in Oakland, CA, that was owned by a couple who were both psychiatrists. They told me that the house had been built for the Chinese consul to San Francisco in about 1930, during Prohibition. The entryway was a long hall ending in a Taoist shrine.

    Downstairs, they took me into a room with about 12 foot ceilings that was oval and all the walls were floor-to-ceiling cedar closets. They opened the door of one of the closets, pushed against its back wall, and it opened into a full speakeasy, complete with dance floor, stage for a band, mirror ball, and curved booths with overstuffed red upholstery. It was wonderful!

    posted by Dan on 10-9-2009 at 7:38 pm

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