Secret Washington

Somewhere in these rooms there are more than seventy secret doors, and finding them is the entire point. A bookcase swings open into a hidden staircase; a mirror is actually a passage; a wall of logs conceals a room. Five connected townhouses hold over a hundred themed rooms, and almost everything you touch — the furniture, the art, the guitars signed by the musicians who stayed here — is quietly for sale. Rosa Parks kept a private suite here for the last decade of her life. There is no single path; you are handed a list of doors to find and turned loose. Come on a quiet weekday and ask the staff for a hint when you get stuck — they will give you exactly one.