The Luxury Safe Room – A High-End Real Estate Must Have

Disaster preparedness needs to be dealt with now for the next inevitable event

If recent media reports of building plans featuring what looks like a secure bunker on the property of Mark Zuckerberg are true, the billionaire won’t be alone. As fear escalates worldwide, foreign royals, cautious executives, and Gwyneth Paltrow are among those looking for spots to ride out anything from an ISIS attack to a natural disaster.

Secure design has come a long way since hedge fund titan Bruce Kovner outfitted his historic Manhattan townhouse with a lead-lined room, built to protect him from a dirty bomb, in 2002. These days safe rooms are more five-star retreat than cinder block fallout shelter

It has become a bragging right in the real estate industry, too. Sotheby’s Jean Bateman is currently holding the listing for a 4,000-square-foot Dallas home that features a reinforced safe room (amenities also include an outdoor cook station, a putting green, and a four-car garage). While it’s rarely the top feature on buyers’ lists, “no one thinks,’I wish that weren’t here.’ It’s certainly a bonus,” Bateman says. “Everyone has a different use for it,” says James Keough, of Douglas Elliman’s Hamptons office, who is currently representing a mid–seven figure Wainscott home with a panic room, “whether it’s jewelry or antique guns or a renter’s closet [to secure the owners’ belongings when the house is rented out for the season].”

Panic Room Builders supply fully equipped Safe Room Kits and can be shipped anywhere in the world – Designed to your custom specifications

Homes with Safe Rooms that have been on the open market:

ELLICE STREET, MALIBU ($27.9 MILLION)

This seven-bedroom features a panic room with a bulletproof door inside the master suite.

LUXURYPORTFOLIO.COM

6657 CRESTWAY COURT, DALLAS ($1.1 MILLION)

This four-bedroom comes with a safe room designed for extreme weather and terrorist attacks.

SOTHEBYSREALTY.COM

7 HUBERT STREET, NYC ($24.9 MILLION)

Wolf of Wall Street character inspiration Alan Wilzig’s three-bedroom Tribeca pad has a safe room among its 6,500 square feet. (There’s another 3,000 square feet of outdoor space.)

NESTSEEKERS.COM