Make Your Home Fit for a Spy

Ever dreamed of secretly moving from the lounge to the library without anyone being the wiser? One Arizona-based company can make those dreams come true. The premier (and perhaps only) manufacturer of secret passages and hidden rooms, Creative Home Engineering specializes in building bookcases that revolve into secret rooms, remote-controlled staircases that reveal hidden basements and cloaked safes that rise out of the floorboards.

"It's pretty sophisticated stuff," says Creative Home Engineering President Scott Humble. "Right now we're working on a stone wall where certain stones are actually buttons. When you push those stones in the correct sequence, it's a code and opens a secret door."

The company currently offers more than 100 varieties of hidden passages ranging from simple room-behind-a-painting models to more complex engineering feats like clandestine draw bridges, armchairs that convert to secret slides and bulletproof bookcases that swing open only by an iris scan.