'Zillow Gone Wild' Tours a 16,000-Square-Foot Vegas Fallout Shelter That Would Cost $50 Million to Build Today

There’s checking-under-the-bed-for-monsters paranoid, and then there’s building-a-16,000-square-foot-underground-bunker-in-case-of-nuclear-attack kind of paranoid. Zillow Gone Wild featured a Cold War-era home that is solidly in the latter variety.

When Jack arrives to tour the behemoth yet benign-looking Las Vegas home, he is initially confused. “All due respect, this is like a kind of normal house,” he tells Frankie, the home’s property manager. “Why am I here?”

At that, Frankie takes Jack down a flight of stairs, where he is met by her assistant who “has the secret code" to a nearby elevator. Jack looks directly into the camera with a look of trepidation so real that you can practically feel his agent’s cellphone ringing.

“Oh my gosh!” Jack exclaims as he steps out of the elevator and enters the exterior (but actually still the interior?) entry of a fully bomb-proof home hidden 26 feet underground.

Known as an "Atomitat," which Frankie explains is an "atomic habitat designed for a single family to live underground long term and make it through a bomb,” the house was built in 1974 by Jerry and Mary Henderson. Jerry, a successful entrepreneur, spent $10 million and four years having the underground home custom-built. Today, the same house would cost approximately $50 million to build.

The original Atomitat was completed in Plainview, Texas, in 1962 by architect Jay Swayze, and was reported as the first underground home to meet US civil defense specifications. Jerry hired Jay to consult on the build; the iconic Vegas Underground House is the fourth and largest of its kind.

The details that went into creating an underground bunker that lives like any other home are nothing short of astounding. The front yard, which features trees that are actually cleverly disguised structural support beams, even has piped-in audio of birds chirping so that “the outdoors feels more like the outdoors,” Frankie explains.

Inside (even though technically it’s all inside), there’s a spacious living room with 11-foot-high ceilings and windows that look out to the faux views. The views are custom-painted murals paired with timed lighting so you can experience daylight, sunset and nightfall. The immersive experience is “like a theme park,” according to the stunned Jack.

Of course, any home that can sustain a family living underground surviving nuclear attack must have a working kitchen — and this one is no exception. Here, the kitchen looks more like a time capsule that has been frozen in the year 1976, featuring pink linoleum tile floors (Mary’s favorite color), built-in toasters (which were apparently the, ahem, toast-of-the-town kitchen accessories of their time) and original appliances that still work — only the refrigerator and dishwasher have been replaced over the years. “There's been a little bit of touchup, but it's all original and there's plenty of room for food storage that could last up to five years,” Frankie says.

One can only imagine that sleeping in an underground house must be a literal dream, especially if you like it dark and quiet, which apparently Jerry did. The couple had separate bedrooms, which was common for that time, and Jerry “liked having a very serene environment so that he could focus and rest well because he was such a workaholic,” Frankie explains. Meanwhile, Mary’s bedroom is a pink fever dream with walls covered in pink silk fabric imported from Asia (Jerry worked at a silk factory when he was younger), pink drapes and an en suite bathroom complete with a soaking tub with a (what else!) pink surround.

As impressive as the indoor spaces are, it’s the "outdoor" spaces that are truly astonishing. Outside of Mary’s bedroom is a lagoon-style pool with a built-in spa and even a separate cold plunge. Jerry and Mary were about 50 years ahead of the curve on this health and wellness trend.

There’s also a four-hole putting course. “You cannot be bored if you're living underground for many years,” Frankie explains before showing Jack a seemingly innocuous faux boulder that opens up to reveal a huge electric grill. “You’ve got to have an actual BBQ next to your pool in your underground mansion."

“You know that none of these words go together,” he jokes.

This one-of-a-kind home is on the market at a price that matches its unique possibilities, but the almost 17,000-square-foot property definitely raises a few questions for the real estate agents who come to check it out.

“How do we get inspections on this house?” one agent asks. “Do you have cell service down here?” asks another. All good questions, especially for a buyer willing to sink $5.9 million into this space.

Currently, the house, which Jack declares “the most unexpected of perhaps all of the houses I've seen on Zillow Gone Wild,” has yet to find its next history-loving owner, but we’re confident that it eventually will. The listing agent just might have to dig a little deeper.