Monday, 2 February 2015

This Seemingly Normal Home From The 60s Is Hiding A Massively Impressive Secret

In the early 1960s, a successful businessman and philanthropist named Girard B. Henderson used his significant wealth to spearhead a project he called Underground Home. These were homes outfitted to look like modern homes, complete with all the amenities and styles of the day, except they were, as the same suggests, completely underground. Why? Because this was during the height of the Cold War, when people considered a nuclear holocaust to be a possible future. The homes would provide comfortable shelter to survivors. The Underground Home was even exhibited at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.




The house




The door on the left looks like it leads to the outside, but it doesn






Inside, it looked like a modern (for the time) home, complete with tiling and decorative surfaces.







Inside the fallout shelter, you






This area with the murals was meant to stand in for the outdoors, and even had adjustable lighting to mimic different times of day.




The windows here are fake, and even sport an image of some pretty trees. The outdoors also came with an adjustable light. Of course, that hair looks like it could easily withstand a nuclear explosion or two.




Unlike a bunker or basement, this fallout shelter was outfitted with furniture, rugs, lamps, and decoration. No word on how the lamps would be powered in the event of a global disaster, though.







The house even included a shuffleboard court on its exterior.




Besides being completely underground, the house also included a panel that would give inhabitants readings on radiation levels, temperatures, and other information about the surface.




The exterior of the home. From this angle, the house almost looks normal, with two garages and a door, but instead of continuing back, the house continues down. The door also would allow the inhabitants a glimpse of the sun and some fresh air if they weren




The yard features this huge vent in the middle, ostensibly for air flow through the house. In the case of radioactivity, thought, it




(via MessyNessyChic)




We can’t imagine what living underground like this might do to your mental health, but it’s probably not good. Still, it seems to appeal to some people even today. One of Henderson’s underground homes in Las Vegas was rediscovered recently when it sold for $1.7 million, and that one comes complete with a “back yard” painted to look like the outdoors. Henderson’s company didn’t last, needless to say, but these strange relics teach us about a different time.




This Seemingly Normal Home From The 60s Is Hiding A Massively Impressive Secret
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