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This .7M Luxury Fortress Has a Bunker Bigger Than Most Mansions

It’s hard to imagine where we’ll be in 3018. Commuting to the moon for work? Or fighting for scraps in a postnuclear wasteland?

Either way, the Rice house, a fortified megamansion in Atlanta now on the market for $14.7 million, will still be standing.

The architects of this fortress were given a simple mandate: Make sure the 36,000-square-foot structure on 3.5 acres will survive the next 1,000 years. They designed an ultraluxe family home that looks perfectly normal from the outside, but hides top-of-the-line security features such as fortified walls, bulletproof windows and doors, a three-year supply of food, independent sources of water, electricity, and heat, and a 15,000-square-foot bunker with multiple exits.

It also has an indoor shooting range, museum-quality art gallery, bowling alley, infinity pool, movie theater, and a Batcave-like car vault you access by driving through a waterfall.

“This is a very, very different and cool property,” says listing agent Paul Wegener with Sotheby’s. “A lot of these types of secure homes start as missile silos in the middle of a cornfield. This one was different—it was built with all the security architecturally embedded in the property. It’s there, but it’s not meant to be seen.”

The octogenarian homeowner spent $30 million and more than a half-decade designing and overseeing the construction of the Rice house, with the goal of turning it over to his son and grandchildren, Wegener says. He halted construction after his son decided not to move in.

In its current configuration, the Rice house has a completed shell, with interior framing for eight bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, three kitchens, and commercial-grade elevators. Wegener estimates it’ll cost $3 million to $5 million to complete the interior, and the buyer will be able to customize the house as desired.

For example, Wegener says, one client who toured the property wanted to turn the Batcave car vault, which can hold 30 autos, into an indoor hockey rink. Another said it would make a great ballroom.

“Who knows what the next buyer is going to want?” Wegener says. “We leave the final touches up to the buyer. A lot of these homes get so highly personalized, the next buyer winds up gutting everything anyway and personalizing it to make it their home.”

The fortified megamansion is located in the luxe community known as Country Club of the South. The community is home to a number of business leaders and celebrities, including comedian Jeff Foxworthy, singer Usher, retired NBA player Allen Iverson, and the late singer Whitney Houston.

Renowned security consultant Al Corbi helped design the home’s hidden security features. He runs SAFE, or Strategically Armored and Fortified Environments, a firm that helps the world’s millionaires and billionaires fortify their homes, cars, and yachts, and train their families what to do in an emergency. Corbi previously spent two decades designing secure facilities for the U.S. Department of Justice.

For this home, a secure facility means cameras and sensors that feed into a central command center, so security staff can see anyone on the property, even at night. In an emergency, the home’s occupants can escape to safety in seconds. There are multiple hidden exits and a secure observation tower.

In a long-term emergency, the homeowners can hunker down for months—even years—while remotely monitoring what’s happening outside. The expansive bunker, which is larger than most American mansions, is supplied by three 1,000-foot-deep wells.

Wegener tells his clients it’s a “modern fortress” and one of the safest homes on the planet. See you in the next millennium!

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Source: Real Estate News and Advice – realtor.com » Real Estate News