1:09 AM
Tanveer
Missile silo for sale
It's nuclear and biochemically bomb proof and has enough room for an army. In fact, this Cold War missile silo was once owned by the U.S. military.
Today the 185-acre site which cost $18 million to build back in the Fifties is for sale at $1.72 million (£1.1m).
It is owned by cousins and business partners Bruce Francisco and Gregory Gibbons who bought the base in Saranac, upstate New York, in 1991 and lovingly restored it.
Sixty years ago, hundreds of Atlas-F missile silos were built across the U.S. in the event of a thermonuclear war with Russia.
Missiles were stored vertically underground and were rigged to rise out and then lift off via a control centre. When the threat ended, the bases were abandoned.
But Bruce and Gregory were quick to press the button on a deal when one came up for sale in the Adirondacks.
Bruce recalls the first time he saw the base. 'It was just a stairwell coming out of the ground,' he said. 'I thought we should do something amazing with it. I wanted to build a surface home as a covert entrance.'
The circular two-level launch control room was uninhabitable after being swamped in water for over three decades. For three years college kids manually cleaned up the sludge
Now, a would-be buyer can fly directly to the property and land on the runway alongside the open-plan surface lodge which hides the silo entrance.
A keypad protected door on one side of the lodge gives access to the renovated launch control room below.
The two lower-levels feature windows that stream simulated daylight. At 40-feet underground, a 2,000-pound 'impenetrable' door leads to a 50-foot tunnel.
This leads to the 185-foot-deep cylindrical missile storage room which is in its original condition. The steel structure that held the missiles is still there.
Individual properties on the site with access to the silo are on sale for $750,000.
