A Los Angeles real estate agent lifted a closet floor panel inside a 1930s Spanish-style house under renovation and found a fully furnished Prohibition-era bar sealed up since the decade it was built.

Jose Prats, an LA realtor who posts home-discovery videos on TikTok as @sellingla, shared the find in a clip captioned in his own words: “Believe it or not—this is a real Prohibition Era Speakeasy! My client bought this very cute Spanish house to fix it up and we found a secret door in the closet floor. The underground room was covered in dust and spiderwebs,” according to his original TikTok post.

What Was Hiding Under the Floor

The video shows a hatch built into the closet flooring that lifts to reveal a tight, steep staircase descending into a small underground room. Once inside, the space is outfitted like a working bar from the era: a wood countertop, built-in shelving meant for bottles, and wall sconces designed to light the room after dark. It’s the kind of hidden drinking room that got built into houses nationwide during Prohibition, the period from 1920 to 1933 when owning a private stash of liquor still carried real legal risk.

The house sits in Los Angeles and dates to the 1930s Spanish Revival building boom that filled the city with red-tile roofs and stucco walls during that decade, according to Newsweek’s reporting on the discovery. Prats’ client bought the home specifically to renovate it and had no idea what was sealed beneath the closet floor until the crew pulled up the boards.

A Hidden Room That Found New Life

Since the video went up in late November 2024, the clip has kept circulating well past its original run, pulling in viewers who had no idea Prohibition-era speakeasies were sometimes built directly into private homes rather than commercial storefronts and back rooms. The house has since sold, and its new owners have kept the underground bar intact and in use rather than sealing the closet floor back over it.

Key Points

• A closet floor panel in a 1930s Los Angeles Spanish-style home concealed a hidden staircase down to a fully built Prohibition-era bar.
• Realtor Jose Prats (@sellingla) documented the discovery on TikTok inside his client’s newly purchased fixer-upper.
• The hidden room includes a wood bar counter, bottle shelving, and wall sconces untouched since the 1920-1933 Prohibition era.
• The home has since sold, and its new owners kept the speakeasy intact instead of covering it back up.