Secured: To some people, a house has four walls and a roof. Others see it as a more elaborate structure, with balconies, its bathrooms and perhaps a swimming pool, if the budget allows.
And then there are homeowners who, for one reason or another, want to make their homes so ridiculously impenetrable that they no longer look like cozy homes and features are springing up that would make most of the real war bunkers in comparison .
Today we will examine some of the best examples of the latter category: houses so heavily protected that they seem excessive.
10. KWK’s safe house
You’ve probably seen this, even if you don’t recognize the name. This is the complex concrete structure that the Internet likes to call “the zombie-proof house”.
The reality, as always, is both more complex and boring: KWK Safe House is actually the example of a Polish architecture studio of a truly safe house.
The most famous feature of this two-story residential building are the external walls, which can be moved to completely close the house away from the environment … or open it completely to connect it to nature.
Although the “closed” state of the house is definitely the meat of this particular hamburger when it comes to zombie enthusiasts, the real point of the cuboid building seems to be the variety: while it can be closed in a narrow and monolithic block that offers Total privacy The “open” state of the house is a surprisingly airy affair, full of windows, terraces and balconies that let in light and let you out.
Internal views of the “open” state show that the building is almost transparent, with floor-to-ceiling windows on almost all sides.
However, when those zombies eventually attack, it is quite difficult to find a safer hiding place than the KWK Safe House in its “closed” state.
9. The home of the Atlas missile silo
At first glance, this particular building seems more welcoming than guarded. After all, how secure could an idyllic log house in Saranac, New York be when it comes to pushing?
The answer: not very sure. However, the missile silo from the cold war era just below is another matter entirely.
(For the record, the actual missiles have long since been phased out.) The Atlas House missile silo was built in 1960 and actually served as a control center for the aforementioned silo, which has long since been deactivated, but some aspiring Real estate developers have turned to the accessible parts of the facility underground in homes. Tons of armored doors and original control panels remain, making the site a perfect type of air raid shelter.
To top it off, the underground parts of the property are highly isolated and have a landing strip next to a couple of other buildings, so even if living in underground security isn’t your thing, the site has the characteristics of a doomsday compound prepper very well defended.
8. The rice house
Rice House Atlanta in Alpharetta, Georgia advertises itself as a “presidential diplomatic complex”, but the sales pitch is carefully overlooked if the presidents or actual diplomats have ever used it.
Regardless of the political merits of the building, one thing is certain: The Rice House is one of the safest places in the country.
At first glance, the building resembles its ordinary mega-mansion, but aside from the usual follies of the wealthy (such as infinity pools, personal bowling alleys and huge machine rooms), every corner of the Casa del Arroz has become crowded. full of absurd security features, all intelligently integrated into the architecture because, as the home website says, “you can’t beat what you can’t see”.
The house is full of secret entrances, fortified doors, windows and ballistic panels.
The main and guest rooms are basically panic rooms and there is a 15,000 square foot bunker just in case things go really bad.
The house can be closed remotely from anywhere in the world and there is also a button that will spray tear gas against unsuspecting attackers.
Oh, and in case the initial assault doesn’t convince the enemy that the Rice House shouldn’t be disturbed, a well-stocked owner can indefinitely hide in the building – the house is off-grid powered and gets its water from three 1,000-foot-deep artesian wells.
7. Indian Creek Island
Indian Creek Island is a “secret” and ultra-secure island in Miami, Florida that offers so much security to people willing to pay for it that Forbes calls it a “billionaire bunker”.
Some of the richest people in the world pay millions and millions to acquire one of the island’s properties and, with only 40 of them, it is easy to imagine that the market is overheating.
Currently, the most expensive package on the island costs $ 47 million and was purchased by a mysterious Russian buyer in 2012.
The rarity of available property packages and the exclusivity of the island are not the only things that attract buyers.A private police force patrols the shores of Indian Creek 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with boats, jeeps and jet skis, and even the only entrance to the exclusive and hyper-private 18-hole golf course of the island is highly supervised.
6. The “safest home in the world” by Eugene Tssui
Eugene Tssui is the type of man who likes to wear a cape and has a curriculum to support his fashion choices.
He is a professor, author, researcher at Harvard University, flamenco guitarist, concert pianist, inventor, famous amateur boxer and gymnastics champion … and, fortunately, an architect with a penchant for strange and unique designs.
One of his most famous creations is a building he calls the safest home in the world.
He built the house as a home for his elderly parents and as such his version of a heavily guarded house has no armed guards.
Instead, he focused on materials and designs that make the structure as safe as possible from disasters.
The design and properties of the building are inspired by one of nature’s most difficult creatures, the tardigrade.
The organic-looking ridges on the surface hide the pipes that allow hot air to flow around the house, which combined with the wrinkled surface of the house would bring warmth and away from the house, which according to Tssui makes the building is completely fireproof.
Sailfish-style fins keep water and strong winds away from windows and doors, preventing internal flooding and storm damage. In addition, the house is made of Rastra, a special concrete mix infused with compressed recycled coffee cups.
This material allows greater resistance to fires, floods, termites and molds and also acts as an acoustic insulation.
Finally, the load-bearing structures are Structo-lite, a form of hypersurfaced plaster that “folds, flexes and adapts”, which should help the house survive earthquakes.
5. Kim Jong-un’s residences
Whenever the most cautious things in the world are discussed, North Korea’s “beloved leader” Kim Jong-un dusts off his best jacket and makes his shoulders square because he will surely appear at some point in the conversation.
This list is no exception, as Kim has several highly secure residences that are protected both architecturally and by her personal army of 100,000 men.
Details on Kim’s range of homes are few and far between, as is the rest of North Korea.
We know that its main accommodation is the Ryonsong Palace, but at least a dozen other leaders’ residences have been identified (and there will probably be others).
One of these buildings is so opulent that it has a huge 1,000-seat cinema for the dictator to keep up to date with cinematic masterpieces like Godzilla.
Kim likes to renovate his properties frequently at high costs while his people are struggling to survive. In 2010, he built an opulent mansion near Pyongyang to serve as his family’s home, but apparently he didn’t meet his standards after inheriting his father’s Big Boss headquarters: in 2015, it was completely demolished and the building is been restarted.
4. Corbi’s residence
Al Corbi is a security expert who has also been involved in making Rice House the ultra safe community he is, so it’s no surprise that his home in the Hollywood Hills is one of the most heavily guarded buildings.
Its white walls covered with works of art make the house look like your typical average billionaire house in the area, but everything else makes it look like the secret headquarters of a spy organization.
The Corbi family does not have the house keys and does not need them thanks to the biometric recognition software at the entrance.
The building is impervious to earthquakes, thanks to sturdy concrete drawers that reach 30 feet deep. Its residents are equally insensitive to external attackers thanks to a variety of surveillance equipment capable of detecting an intruder about a mile away.
Even if someone enters, the Corbis are in little danger, because the house actually contains a smaller house, even more secure in itself: in addition to the normal living areas, the bedrooms are nested in an ultra-safe 2,500 space of the square foot which is essentially a completely ballistic-proof suite. Corbi calls it a “safe core”.
3. Ira Rennert’s Hamptons Mansion
When a building built by a junk bond billionaire has a reported cost of $ 248 million, you know that security is likely to be little more than a guard dog and a nosy neighbor with a 9-1-1 quick dial.
Ira Rennert’s controversial 62,000-square-foot Hamptons home is full of descriptions of the building’s details, but surprisingly illuminates the details of its safety.
However, this does not mean that the building is exactly unattended, as a Mother Jones reporter who tried to take a look at the house witnessed firsthand: a security guard jumped out of a real bush and threatened to arrest him first He even came over.
Even without concrete data on home security, just observing its vastness and opulence should convince anyone that you can’t get anywhere near the area without a sizable private army.
The Hamptons mansion is said to have up to 29 bedrooms and 39 bathrooms, a 91-foot long dining room, a 164-seat theater, a $ 150,000 hot tub, and a plethora of sports fields and assorted pools.
Rennert also owns an estimated $ 500 million mass art collection and plans to build an on-site museum to house the collection.
2. The Bill Gates House
As one of the world’s most famous tech billionaires and the richest ex-man in the world, Bill Gates is in a prime position to build one of the safest homes in existence and his Washington home certainly lives up to expectations.
The palace, which Gates calls Xanadu 2.0 as a tribute to Citizen Kane, is such a large luxurious house that it had to commission an artificial flow through the structure just to ensure that the outflow of water from the retaining walls did not do so were a problem. .
Not surprisingly, the home is packed with world-class technology, and a combination of sensors, wearable technology and hidden devices allows the Gates family and their guests to regulate absolutely everything in the room whenever they want, from music to lighting and temperature.
You can even change the graphics on the walls with the touch of a button. Oh, and you already had this technology in the 90s, when the rest of the world was still trying to discover the Internet.
Other less technology-oriented services at the Gates house include a room full of trampolines, a giant library with secret shelves that reveal a hidden bar and a 60-foot swimming pool so large as to have internal and external sections.
It is understandable that the local security systems are played a little closer to the chest, but when everyone leaves, everyone leaves. When Gates’ home hosted a party for the National Association of Governors in 2004, the entire property was surrounded by a gigantic temporary security zone which blocked access to much of Lake Washington. For added safety, participants had to arrive by boat.
1. Kim and Kanye’s super secure palace
Hopefully Kim Kardashian and Kanye West live in a kind of fairytale castle, but in reality their home in Hidden Hills, California is a fortress.
Visitors need to navigate multiple security checkpoints just to get to the front door, which a visitor notes appears to “be able to descend a moat.
“The $ 60 million house is heavily guarded by a security team who supervise the celebrity family during the day and accompany them wherever they go. As a final touch, they have a safety capsule in their garage that is always open and alert, which you could imagine making things really difficult when they want to open a bottle of champagne and an armed guard breaks as soon as the cork icicles .
To be honest, there is a reason behind the couple’s interest in security. In 2017, Kardashian was robbed under arms in a Paris hotel, which not only made him realize that his lifestyle on Instagram is too easy to track down, but made him do a complete overhaul when it came. of the security needs of your life.