The secret staircase in the House of the Seven Gables is next to the fireplace. I don't remember how it opened, it has been a few years. We might do it again this spring or early fall. My daughter goes to Salem State and we venture up there very often.
Oh, Birdie, I envy you! I would be so excited to see the actual house. It was filmed recently for some book discussion that I happened to catch on cable a few months ago (C-SPAN?).
I've long believed that "The House of the Seven Gables" (the novel) was very much in the background of Art Wallace's mind when he was developing his original story bible. I don't have time to detail the similarities here (or remember them all offhand). This wasn't my idea. There was a website that I happened upon a few years ago that detailed this. I have tried many times to find this site again, but to no avail. (I lost the URL, and have literally spent hours on google searches, etc.)
Does anyone else know anything about that website, or whose it was? The site was called something like "An Online Course in Dark Shadows." It was actually set up like an actual college course.
I can relate I always wanted a secret passage way or secret room. The nearest thing we had was the eves. I use to go and play in them, we gained access to them throuh my closet in the house I grow up in. There was a storage area under the backstairs that was fun to hide it also. My parents sold that house a year after I got married. I wonder if the new owners children had as much fun as I did in those special places.
Oh, again, Birdie!
Your description reminded me of my grandparent's house on the second floor. It was a two-story stucco house, and two of the bedrooms upstairs had slanted ceilings from the pitch of the roof, and were connected through the closets by a narrow passageway.
You wouldn't know the passageway was there or that the rooms were connected by it unless you went into the closets of each room. Really neat ... I'd forgotten completely about this. This house was in the country, and they later moved to town, so I'd forgotten. Thank you so much for bringing this wonderful memory back to me!
Vlad