The nuclear bunkers designed for luxury living

Larry Hall leads the way out of the elevator and into
 an apartment, one of several in a new development 
that he has recently built.

The space is elegantly furnished. Mr Hall says the 
standard of the finishes and attention to detail has met 
with an enthusiastic response from his customers.

"When they come here for their walkthroughs and the 
closings, I've had several clients that literally cried
 when they saw it - with joy."

But there's something very unusual about these 
dwellings. They are situated many metres below ground
 in an obsolete nuclear missile site, in the middle of 
Kansas in the US.

Mr Hall calls his development Survival Condos. 
"These are luxury, nuclear-hardened bunkers that 
are engineered… to accommodate not just your 
physical protection but your mental wellbeing as well," he says.

Despite the fact that the apartments cost millions of 
dollars each to buy, starting at $1.5m (£1.2m), Mr Hall
 says he is seeing strong demand from wealthy customers.

It seems extraordinary, not least because nearby 
above-ground homes (admittedly without protection
 against nuclear bombs) can be had for a tiny fraction
 of the cost of one of these bunker units. So how has he managed to build an apparently successful business
 selling "survival chic"?

It all began after the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001. 
At the time Mr Hall was an entrepreneur with an internet business; he also had experience of designing and constructing computer data centres.

Demand for computer back-up facilities grew after the
 terrible events of 9/11, says Mr Hall. This gave him an 
idea: make a data centre that could withstand a nuclear 
bomb attack.

Potential clients showed interest in such a facility. It 
was a short step from this to the notion of offering
 bunkers that could give long-term protection for
 residents against nuclear war or other disasters.

The Kansas site eventually chosen for the venture used 
to house an intercontinental ballistic missile.

There are many such abandoned missile launch bases
 across the mid-West, but Mr Hall says only a small 
number were in a fit state to be realistic prospects for the project. Even then, he says, the construction and
 engineering challenges involved in building the facility
 were daunting.

Still, the site had one huge advantage - it came with 
built-in protection against nuclear bomb blasts. If you 
had to build this element from scratch today, "you'd 
better have a very thick cheque book, it's very expensive," 
Mr Hall says.

Mr Hall says he has spent millions on providing the 
complex with every possible feature to keep residents
 safe both now and for an indefinite period, should a catastrophic event occur.

These include air and water filtration systems, a range  
of energysources (including wind power), and the capacity 
to grow plants and breed fish for food supplies. Armed  
guards patrol theentrance.

There are many other features too, such as a cinema, swimming pool, surgery, golf range, and even a rock 
climbing wall. "It's like a miniature cruise ship," says Mr Hall.

He believes that luxury touches like these could help to
 explain a development that may seem a little surprising.

At first, he says, clients saw owning an apartment as
 "like life insurance", just something to be used in case 
of an emergency.

But now some purchasers have come to regard their apartments as second homes, making regular use of 
them for weekends or longer breaks.


"Everyone comments on how well they sleep here," he adds. 

Mr Hall is by no means the only player in the  specialist 
market for survival bunkers, with rivals  offering 
facilities at several locations across the globe. 

But with his use of luxury elements, experts say, Mr  Hall
 is exploiting a growing trend.

"There's a market now because the traditional 
idea  that somehow… you should 'rough it for the sake
 of  your soul' is disappearing," says Peter York, an 
adviser to many large luxury businesses.

In this market, he says, "you're hitting a cohort of rich
 people who don't value the idea of even temporary 
Spartan-ness - they want everything to be luxurious 
all the time."

Even though he may be pushing at an open door, Mr Hall 
says he faces many challenges in running his business, 
over and above the obvious difficulties of building the
 facilities in the first place.

One of the biggest issues is marketing. His clients, 
many of whom are wealthy, tend to be secretive.

"Saying that you own a bunker apparently, for whatever reason, is just like saying you saw a UFO. A lot of these
 people have learned that they don't want other people
 to know that they have a bunker," he says.

Then there is the question of how residents would get 
along together in the aftermath of a catastrophic event.

Mr Hall says he has put a lot of effort into researching 
the psychological aspects, with the aim of ensuring that
 the underground community would function well in 
times of calamity.

Measures taken include special lighting, and varying 
ceiling heights, with high ceilings in communal areas,
 and lower ones in the medical wing "where people 
may feel vulnerable", says Mr Hall.

In a long-term situation where the complex was
 secured against the outside world, residents would 
rotate various jobs on a monthly basis.

"One month you might be working in the general store,
 the next month you'd be working in the hydroponics, 
tending the plants," says Mr Hall. This would help to
 keep people occupied, as well as ensuring that, over
 time, "they have a complete understanding of the facility".

Despite the challenges involved, Mr Hall appears to 
enjoy himself, with one complex already completed, 
and another one well under way. "It's a lot of fun building these," he says.