Articles — Better Homes & Gardens, May 2003
 A Secret Passage solved Angela and Barney Cornings' floor plan problem while giving their living room a novel twist.
A built-in set of bookshelves holds Angela Corning's tennis and riding trophies. Quite typical. But it also disguises a hidden passage to a wet bar and study in the suburban Boston home she shares with her husband and children
Hidden corridors are a staple of Agatha Christie novels and English manors, but in this suburban Boston home they solved some potential traffic problems.
While considering a floor plan for their new home, Angela and Barney Corning were concerned that the wet bar they wanted would be cut off from the living room where they planned to entertain. Placing the wet bar within the study made sense, but forcing guests to trek around the staircase, past the front door, and down a short hallway to refresh their drinks seemed inconvenient.
 Barney worked with architect Rob MacNeille to devise a plan to display the bar while linking the rooms. The result is a traditional-looking bookcase that opens as easily as a pair of french doors. "It was an inspiration," says MacNeille. "We didn't want the wet bar to be too hidden. Plus, we were looking for a circular pattern for the rooms." The placement converted unused wall space in the living room, next to the fireplace chimney, that was deep enough to make a passage to the study.
The architect knew that once closed, the bookcase would fit snugly into the surrounding molding, helping to disguies its secondary function as a doorway. His main concern was that it look just as natural when the shelves parted to reveal the wet bar.
"Open it had to make sense," MacNeille says. "It couldn't just be a hanging wall of books." From a construction standpoint he adds, "The whole thing has to be rigid so it doesn't scrape," he says. The architect had the doors suspended on heavy-duty pivot hinges, allowing them to fold back to face each other. "Opened it looks like a hallway instead of two bookcases hanging in midair," says MacNeille.
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