Rare 'Bomb Shelter' Home Sold In Homewood
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A recently sold home in suburban Chicago comes with an unusual feature.
Fancy, smart technology? Custom cabinetry? Luxurious shower? No.
It comes with a bomb shelter.
This tidy, two bedroom brick home in Homewood just sold for $115,000. Buried deep in the home's description: "Second kitchen and wine cellar/bomb shelter in the basement."
This summer Crain's reported that it may have been the only house on the market that advertised a bomb shelter.
The home was built in 1951 as fears of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union escalated. Just two years later, both the U.S. and the Soviets conducted thermonuclear test blasts and the Doomday Clock was set just two minutes to midnight.
"Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization," the Chicago-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warned at the time.
The clock currently is set at 2 ½ minutes to midnight, amid fears of nuclear confrontation with North Korea, among other concerns about terrorism and relations with Russia.
The interest in bomb shelters is booming now.
Ron Hubbard, who owns Atlas Survival Shelters in California, says sales are skyrocketing.
"It seems like a modern-day Gold Rush right now," he said. "Six years ago, doing 10 or 11 shelters a year, to doing close to 1,000 this year is a dramatic increase."