We’re the Ones Who Made Hidden Doors a Thing

This started in a garage on my days off. I was a firefighter in Roy, Utah. Twenty-four hours on, forty-eight off. In 2012 I wanted a hidden bookcase door for my own home and couldn't buy one that actually worked. The hardware didn't exist, so I built the hinge system myself.

That one door turned into orders. Orders turned into a business I ran between shifts. I didn't leave the fire service until Murphy Door was standing on its own, because I wasn't going to bet my family on a maybe.

People have hidden rooms behind bookcases for centuries. What nobody had built was a company that could engineer these doors, make them to order, and get them to a normal person's home at a price that made sense. That's the part we built, and today Murphy Door is the largest designer and manufacturer of hidden doors in the country.

We build bookcase doors, hidden rooms, secret passages, panic and safe rooms, experience centers, escape rooms, and speakeasies. Some of it lands on HGTV. Some of it protects a family. Most of it is just people wanting something in their home that nobody else has.

I still run this company the way I ran a rig. Show up, do the work, tell the truth, take care of the people counting on you.

There's more to the story, the other companies and the climb back from broke. You can read all of it at jeremybarker.com.