'Apocalypse dream home' with bomb shelter and radio control room up for sale for £266k

dailystar.co.uk:

Cold War era is up for sale in the US, with offers starting at £266,000.The house was built in 1957 and is in Minnetonka, a suburban city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, about nine miles west of Minneapolis.The listing for the property online, in a lovely tree-lined neighbourhood, says: "Some era surprises are very interesting!"That comment no doubt refers to the solar-powered greenhouse, hidden bomb shelter, and ham radio setup, especially prevalent as fears escalate over a new nuclear war after Russia invaded Ukraine.

One online real estate marketplace that has the home listed, Zillow, said that they expect the home to sell quicker than 99 % of nearby properties.

The property was once owned by Henrietta and Bud Chute, who built the shelter in 1961 after their employers gave money to people to construct them.They were specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion.

Many such shelters were constructed as civil defence measures during the Cold War. In October 1961 President John F. Kennedy urged families to build bomb shelters to protect them from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.“IBM gave all their employees $1,000 (£760) to build one,” Henrietta, a former employee of the company explained in a 2017 interview. “Bud loved to build things, and he drew it all to scale.”According to the feature, the shelter’s entrance is marked by a wooden wall ladder, which runs up to an escape hatch leading to the backyard.