great little fixer-upper

September 5, 2013 9:30 AM

The 1970s Cold War Era Home built 26 Feet Underground
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse (52 comments total)

I'll take the nuclear holocaust over that wallpaper, thanks.
posted by yoink at 9:32 AM on September 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

I never thought there was anything that could possibly draw me to Las Vegas ... but that house is awesome. Just the grill alone, so yabba dabba doo.
posted by headnsouth at 9:39 AM on September 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

I would totally live there. I would also barricade myself in the room with the yellow wallpaper and start tearing it off in strips.
posted by brina at 9:39 AM on September 5, 2013 [11 favorites]

And with that, yoink misses the perfect Wildean opportunity to say, "Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
posted by mochapickle at 9:39 AM on September 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

A Very Brady Apocalypse
posted by middleclasstool at 9:40 AM on September 5, 2013 [18 favorites]

Wow, a whole year after a nuclear holocaust, huh? By that time, the Earth should be completely back to normal.
posted by DU at 9:41 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

When you think about it, Greg and Marsha would have to overcome those incest taboos finally if they were serious about repopulating the species and also togetherness lessons.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:42 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" just becomes the appropriate way of addressing all three of her heads simultaneously.
posted by yoink at 9:45 AM on September 5, 2013

Mr Roquette and I now wish we had the money to get this place. It would be our dog-free, cat-free haven. We would be free of everyone else's noises down there...
And maybe my son could inherit it and live in magnificent isolation from people who annoy him.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:47 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

My wife was just showing this to me. I want that grill.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:47 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."

I was checking out some local real estate last night (not 40 years ago, surprisingly), and came across a place with this kitchen, which might actually be worse.

But this house is fantastic. The outdoors-indoor thing is totally appropriate in Las Vegas, too; all the casinos on the Strip do it. I would love to own that house and turn the underground space into a bitchin recording studio.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:47 AM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

came across a place with this kitchen,

Oh God, the chairs! There's no knowing how many of them might be lurking, hidden, in every photo...
posted by yoink at 9:50 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you're grilling over a gas flame, you might as well be cooking inside where it's air conditioned.
posted by Daddy-O at 9:50 AM on September 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

Wasn't this in a movie? Was something similar in a movie?

A movie happened at some point and it had things that I remember.
posted by elizardbits at 9:51 AM on September 5, 2013 [5 favorites]

Wow, a whole year after a nuclear holocaust, huh?

Well, it's a fallout shelter, right? Fallout decays moderately quickly. If you can hole up in your fallout shelter for a month or two, that's really useful for avoiding exposure. A year is pretty far into diminishing returns.
posted by ryanrs at 9:52 AM on September 5, 2013

Jesus. I think I'm going to set up a kickstarter to buy it so I can have David Lynch move into it for a year and shoot a movie down there.
posted by Naberius at 9:52 AM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

If you're grilling over a gas flame, you might as well be cooking inside

The grill is inside.
posted by ryanrs at 9:53 AM on September 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

yay i remembered a thing that was real
posted by elizardbits at 9:54 AM on September 5, 2013 [7 favorites]

Just looking at those pictures is giving me the claustrophobic heebie-jeebies. Reminds me of that one level in Fallout: New Vegas, where there was a neighborhood of houses that was totally enclosed. Barely made it through that one.
posted by jbickers at 9:54 AM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

Everything in life is better when you experience it in a vault .
posted by The Whelk at 9:57 AM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

now I want some mad genius to buy the thing and turn it into a fallout/atomic punk Museum
posted by The Whelk at 10:00 AM on September 5, 2013

The swimming pool actually makes a lot of sense, since your primary concern is having a supply of water.

The in-wall toaster seems a bit superfluous, unless they have a generator and a crate of Pop Tarts.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:01 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well, the late 70's was the time when there were all manner of survivalist magazines out there that sort of figured that if we could hang out in fallout shelters for a while we could just reboot civilization. So, sure, awesome underground bunker seems a great idea.

God I'm glad the cold war is over.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:04 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Why couldn't we reboot civilization? It's not like humans would go extinct or enter a dark age or anything.
posted by ryanrs at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2013

Two words: concert venue.

For a *truly* underground music scene.
posted by weston at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Weird... it looks like crude CGI. Which makes me want to shoot the place up counter-strike style.
posted by Kabanos at 10:46 AM on September 5, 2013

Planetesimal beat me to it. Could we get Don Johnson to buy it?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 10:52 AM on September 5, 2013

The first few photos I thought were Photoshopped (and/or bad HDR) until I got further down and realized it was an underground outside.
posted by mrbill at 10:52 AM on September 5, 2013

Seems like an awesome party space to me.
posted by octothorpe at 10:52 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hmmmm... re-do that bathroom, get rid of the gawdawful gold wallpaper (& matching curtains!); I'll put up with the pink 'n' white kitchen.

Yeah, I'll take it. Let me see what I have sitting around in my petty-cash fund....
posted by easily confused at 11:20 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would love to spend some time in that house, slowly go mad, and then murder everyone!
posted by Mister_A at 11:29 AM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

I myself would rather sit through a nuclear blast, the shock wave, and skin-peeling radiation than spend one minute in that kitchen.
posted by Uncle Grumpy at 11:35 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Pretty much my dream house right there. It would be better if it was in an above-ground warehouse or airplane hanger. But in general the idea of a structure inside of a structure has always appealed to me for some weird reason.
posted by billyfleetwood at 11:42 AM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

If I had a million dollars and the desire to live in Vegas, I think I'd be all over this. And I'd have a certain record on repeat:

"Yes we're gonna have a wingding
A summer smoker underground
It's just a dugout that my dad built
In case the reds decide to push the button down
We've got provisions and lots of beer
The key word is survival on the new frontier."
posted by uberchet at 12:00 PM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

The true horror here is: Who wants a full-length, 3-panel mirror over the bathtub???!!!! Where you'd have to see yourself naked head-to-toe!???!!!!! EVERY TIME YOU NEED A BATH!!!!????

It would be more kind to let me die above ground.
posted by MoxieProxy at 12:26 PM on September 5, 2013

jbickers: Just looking at those pictures is giving me the claustrophobic heebie-jeebies.

For me, it was the "pine trees" that abruptly ended in the ceiling which made me really feel like I was in an oversized coffin.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:27 PM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'd turn it into a kickass recording studio.
posted by stenseng at 12:34 PM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Fill the whole thing up with water and you've got yourself a nice little climate change simulator. Charge people $500 a pop to scuba dive in the "lost world under the sea". Throw a few skeletons in for added effect.
posted by orme at 12:54 PM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

And I'd have a certain record on repeat:

No no it is this one.
posted by The Whelk at 1:08 PM on September 5, 2013

Or this.
posted by yoink at 1:26 PM on September 5, 2013

Reading that article made me feel like "this is kind of cool" until I discovered I was having difficulty breathing.
posted by 4ster at 1:51 PM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

I know the thread consensus is "this is cool", but I found something almost unimaginably sad and disturbing about this. I keep imagining a family trying to hold on to each other and deal with the horrifying reality of nuclear war amid that ultra-bright, cheery environment. Trying to act like everything's still normal, and that everything will turn out okay. As a member of the (hopefully) last generation to have lived with the specter of nuclear war with the Russians, all I can say is ... the problems we deal with today ain't shit.
posted by evil otto at 1:56 PM on September 5, 2013 [5 favorites]

Not only that, but I imagine a fart really lingers in that house.
posted by 4ster at 1:59 PM on September 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

evil otto: I know the thread consensus is "this is cool", but I found something almost unimaginably sad and disturbing about this.

And you call yourself "evil." Pah!
posted by filthy light thief at 2:06 PM on September 5, 2013 [3 favorites]

Isn't this where they filmed the first part of Blast from the Past?
posted by Mick at 2:47 PM on September 5, 2013

"Mr Roquette and I now wish we had the money to get this place. It would be our dog-free, cat-free haven. We would be free of everyone else's noises down there."

I think it's awesome, too! I'm not that keen on the aesthetics, especially the faux outdoors. But I've idly fantasized about living underground all my life. I totally want to live underground. It makes so much more sense, energy-wise.

Anytime I read about a very large, underground space, either a cavern or something like NORAD's place, I think about how cool it would be to actually put up full-spectrum lamps, put down a layer of soil and stuff, plant grass and trees, and build houses. Or one house! Mine! All underground!

I'm fine with just the underground house part, though. Or even not an actual conventional house, because maybe that's excessive, but just a home that's underground. With just a normal elevator entrance alone on a field of trees and grass, and maybe a freight elevator discreetly hidden further away.

Ever since I learned about Kansas City's SubTropolis after I moved here last year, I've been dying to visit. As Wikipedia says, it's 55 million square feet and possible the world's largest underground facility. (I feel certain that some military installation somewhere must be larger, but classified.) It's a salt mine and that might make the environment a bit difficult. There's businesses and other facilities down there, but no one lives in it. I really think they should sell condos.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:11 PM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Fixer upper?

Looks like that baby's ready to move into and parrr-tay!
posted by BlueHorse at 5:44 PM on September 5, 2013 [2 favorites]

The reason for having an actual house are to deflect attention by having more confusing heat signature.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:33 PM on September 5, 2013

So what happens when the anticipated nuclear holocaust comes, and you barricade yourself inside your bunkerhouse, and 10 seconds after the first bomb drops the power goes out? Are you stuck in total darkness?

The power here goes out during a stiff breeze, I just don't see how this was ever supposed to work.
posted by Pazzovizza at 6:35 PM on September 5, 2013 [1 favorite]

Jesus. I think I'm going to set up a kickstarter to buy it so I can have David Lynch move into it for a year and shoot a movie down there.

Get out of my head. I came to post exactly the same thing. This should definitely be the Bad Guy's Lair in a David Lynch movie.
posted by zardoz at 7:31 PM on September 5, 2013

This was used in an episode of CSI called 'Sheltered' I think.
posted by srboisvert at 7:58 PM on September 5, 2013

This reminds me of the McNinja family home.
posted by moonmilk at 10:38 AM on September 6, 2013 [1 favorite]