There is a Titan 1 ICBM missile site, on 100 acres, in Colorado for sale. There is no house above it, but the Titan 1 sites were MASSIVE. The Atlas F site, like the one with the house, were the strongest built of the era, but they were small and only had one silo. The Titan 1 site ran three miles from end to end and had three silos. If I remember right they have something like 70,000 sq ft. There is one in Oklahoma that was made into a high school.
The one in Colorado had been for sale for a number of years for $1,000,000.00 and I though after sitting that long the owners might be flexible. I researched some and found that the place, like all that were still left as they were when decommissioned, was close to being what could be called a toxic waste site.
There were two three-foot thick blast doors that could withstand 10,000 psi of pressure. The grease they used on them, and on anything else that needed greasing had PCB's in it. The silos were very toxic. The solution used to clean the missiles had a combination of toxins. When all the equipment was ripped out, and I do mean RIPPED out it was broken up and the switches were all mercury switches.
When I found all that out I told the person handling the sale I was not interested. The owners sprung to have the site cleaned, made safe, and painted ... and the price doubled to $2,000,000.00.
There's another one near Sturgis, but it's flooded. Because of the toxins the water cannot just be pumped out onto the ground. It would have to be pumped into tankers and taken to some toxic waste storage facility. The price as is, is cheap, but by the time you pumped it out, had a cleanup crew go through it, repair everything that would be shot from it being flooded for decades you would have millions in it, and that would be before you would then build a home inside it. And if you wanted to build different floors/levels in the silos, that would cost a bunch.
The best deals on something along those line are AT&T "Long Line" communications bunkers. They are not as deep, some have only four or so feet of ground above them. But they are like 4 foot thick steel and hardened concrete that was wrapped in a layer of steel and then a layer of lead and then another layer of steel. The lead was to protect the electronics inside form the EMP of a nuclear blast.
The problem with those are that most, not all, but most are in the middle of nowhere .. and I mean the middle of nowhere. I missed a chance at one in Pulaski, Indiana and I found another in Nevada. If I remember right it was a place called Dinner Stop. It was next to a real old west ghost town, deserted, miles and miles and miles from the nearest town. The site was something like 10,000 sq. ft, maybe 15,000 sq. ft, I can't remember, it's been a number of years and I checked into so many of them over the years, but being where it was the road to town isn't plowed in the Winter. So unless you could plow your way all the way to town and back all Winter, or use a snowcat or snowmobile, you would have to stock up for the Winter and hope you didn't need anything ... like a Doctor or a Dentist or the only way anyone would likely get to you would be by helicopter.
There's a Titan II site in Arkansas that's being marketed like it might be a 'gold mine.' The person selling it is claiming that when it was decommissioned the silo was imploded (something required under the treaty that was in force at the time) and the cover to the silo was buried on the property. The claim is that it was then just covered over and the LCC (Launch Control Center) still has all it's equipment in it and the salvage value of it would likely repay the cost of buying the site.
I spoke to someone in the Air Force who told me what company was used to strip the site and spoke to the owner of the company who was at the time a teenager and on one of his first jobs with his then father's business. He said he remembers it clearly. He said if someone could find three feet of wire left in the place he would be stunned. He said they picked it clean.
He told me if I was interested in it I should talk to the EPA first. Someone from the EPA told me don't buy it. When the silo was imploded it sent up a lot of dust and debris from the concrete. The hardened concrete of the era had, again, PCBs in it and the ground was contaminated. A foot of fresh topsoil was brought in to cover the property, but you cannot dig, not at all, not so much as to plant a bush. The well is polluted/toxic, and you cannot drill another well and even if by now city water goes out that far, you cannot dig/trench to have it brought in. To make it even more amazing is the entrance was buried and you cannot even dig to get to the entrance. So anyone who might buy that site will not only never find the alleged valuable materials below, they will never be able to get below.
There was an Atlas F site, like the one the house is over, in Texas that was, or maybe still is, for sale. It had been cleaned out and a the time was ready to be built in, but the silo was totally flooded. The owners used it for a business and people would pay to scuba dive there.
Another Atlas F site is in Arizona, and it's silo is also flooded and the owners sell the water to farmers for irrigation. I don't know the condition of the LCC though.
There was a time that I was positive I would own and live in a piece of "The Cold War." I thought it would be really cool. But then I found that other than the one this thread is about, the rest were either nightmares or even more expensive than the $1.75 mil the Adirondacks site is priced at.
Like I said, the AT&T "Long Line" hardened communications bunkers are better values. Some are very large, like 20,000 sq ft. The smallest one I ran across was the one I missed out on in Pulaksi Indiana. It is 6,500 sq. ft. Most fall in the 10,000 sq. ft. to 15,000 sq. ft. size ... but they are a much better dollar value ... IF you can find one in an area you want to live in and not end up in the middle of nowhere.
