Hollywood celebs are mixing paranoia with pleasure in safe rooms
Hollywood celebs are mixing paranoia with pleasure in safe rooms
Apparently uncertainty over the upcoming election triggered this trend
Even with uncertainties on the rise in the run-up to the US presidential election, Los Angeles’ well-heeled have come prepared for all contingencies, whoever handles the nuclear codes.
Panic rooms have vaulted to bucket-list priorities in recent months, according to The Hollywood Reporter. One specialist in underground bunkers and similar facilities told the Reporter that overall sales in his company have risen 150 percent in the past year.
“Any time there is a turbulent political landscape, we see a spike in our sales,” Brad Roberson, marketing director for a bunker seller, told the Reporter. “Given this election is as turbulent as it is, we are gearing up for an even bigger spike.”
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Los Angeles aristocrats seem to be as much ready for a post-apocalyptic revelry as an Emmy after-party. Contemporary panic rooms look less like Cold War-era nuclear bunkers than well-appointed underground mansions, complete with swimming pools, wine rooms, bowling alleys, and home theatres. At least one above-ground facility was “disguised as a horse barn,” the report stated.
“Safe rooms have become an important luxury ‘checklist’ item for high-end sales and a more common request in the past five years,” Peter Maurice, estates director for Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills, said.
Panic room buyers run the gamut from technopreneurs to thespians, with at least one Academy Award winner splurging on a USD10.28 million, 9,000-square-foot complex in Napa Valley. Robert Vicino, an Indiana-based community bunker maker, claimed that Bill Gates has constructed “huge shelters” under his Rancho Santa Fe home, echoing recent reports that Mark Zuckerberg is building a panic home complex in his California estate.
“It’s really just the newest form of insurance,” Vicino told the Reporter.
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Source: Property Report