julieturkewitzVerified account

Earlier this year I wrote about private landowners who are buying up vast swaths of the U.S. West . . .

. . . In the course of that reporting, I began hearing about another corner of the Western land market: bunker real estate.

This led me to Larry Hall, owner of Survival Condo, a former military nuclear missile vault built 15 stories into the earth’s crust that he has converted into a luxury condominium.

Spacious living rooms, swimming pool, saunas, movie theater, weapons cache — it's got the works.

Larry is not alone; in recent years, personalized disaster prep has grown into a multimillion-dollar business.

In Las Vegas, an underground bunker built by the Avon Cosmetics executive Girard Henderson, featuring a midcentury chef’s kitchen and a wood-burning fireplace, is on sale for $18 million.

In Kansas, one couple has been selling old missile silos through a company called 20th Century Castles.

In Colorado, a former weapons compound featuring half a mile of underground tunnels is listed on the real estate site LoopNet for $4.2 million.