My first thought is that if the L.A. ‘Superrich’ are really concerned about surviving the apocalypse, they’d get more bang for their buck by buying a helicopter and having it on standby to leave LA.
I still love the idea of a nice, hardened, ‘second home’ somewhere. But the more I think about it, the more I start to think that if that second home is so nice and desirable, why not just make that your primary home?
Of course, real-world factors come into play…your job may be in San Francisco and your ‘second home’ in, say, Kingman AZ. You aren’t going to live in Kingman and have a job that pays what you were getting in SF. (The exception to this are those lucky sould who can telecommute and have the freedom to live anywhere.)
If I had the money, I wouldn’t bother with a super-secret underground bunker….I’d just buy the land outright and build my subtle-but-secure dream house. I mean, if you’re making $20m per movie, why wouldn’t you just do a couple movies, call it a day, and go retire to your nice, quiet estate in the mountains?
Someone once said that when you bug out of your residence, you become a refugee. Makes sense to me, even though we have a cabin up north we really don’t have ties to that community or enough pre-positioned supplies to carry us over.
Totally agree. Found out the county sheriff lived next door two years after I got my BOL. He was real curious about the neighbor that’s never there and the town is not known to be a vacation spot. Had to start going up more regularly to get to know my neighbors and keep up the facade.
“…they’d get more bang for their buck by buying a helicopter and having it on standby to leave LA…..”
Yes sir. And yet it’s somehow gratifying to infer they’re short-sighted enough to actually *remain* in the celebrity cage-match called “L.A.”. Eventually, the inner city crack heads WILL find the entrance to their bat caves…then it’s “game on”.
Money is nothing but a tool.
“…if that second home is so nice and desirable, why not just make that your primary home?”
Which is what we decided. We couldn’t afford 2 homes, but we could afford to live on a smaller salary. So we moved as far into the boonies as we felt comfortable. In the zombie apocalypse, we probably have a better chance of surviving than the ultra-rich with 2 or more homes.
Or the could just give up on the “ultra rich” thing and find a nice smaller town, outside a mega-region, and at least a couple miles from and interstate to live in and get on with life. I don’t care how rich you are living in a bunker would suck. Living in fear of everyone around you would suck. Eventually your supplies will run out and you’ll have to re-emerge from your bunker. What then?
I know all my neighbors. They’re all nice, hard working people. If something bad happens we’ll work together to fix things.
Referencing Kingman, you must understand AZ a bit more than I thought. Wikieup is nice, too. 🙂
UBAZ
“If I had the money, I wouldn’t bother with a super-secret underground bunker….I’d just buy the land outright and build my subtle-but-secure dream house. I mean, if you’re making $20m per movie, why wouldn’t you just do a couple movies, call it a day, and go retire to your nice, quiet estate in the mountains?”
You mean to pull a Harrison Ford?
Or a Joe Rogan.
Meh. They’ll still end up as soylent green protein crackers.
Their fantasies are still built on the silly convention that people won’t invade and occupy the original site, and won’t thusly discover those “secret” doors, now helpfully reported on in the HR.
They also focused on amenities rather than supplies, so in a couple of weeks, when the caviar and pate de foie grasse is gone, they’ll emerge and get eaten.
Interestingly, the floor plan illustrated is anchored on 40′ conex containers, welded together and merged after taking down intermediate walls – exactly like the hoi polloi have been doing for years. Absent pretty substantial structural upgrades outside, the first 7.0 or better earthquake, and those are going to be dirt storage facilities, when that 10 feet of “protective” earth comes in the ceilings and walls.
And the nouveau riche are going to be rather perturbed when they find out that those NDAs don’t preclude mandatory reporting of the GPS coordinates of installed bunkers to FEMA & Co.
“Knock Knock! It’s your Uncle Sammie! C’mon out!”
Once again proving that Bill Gates and the celebrity trash are pretty much idiot savants, and will be a short-lived phenom if/when things get sporty, for any problem lasting longer than a month.
A sister w/husband retired to the AZ desert, and bought a new house with a 45 minute drive to town. Way off the beaten path. Recently told me that they are running that Mex-Can hiway 1/4 mile from her place. Her house is visible from it. I advised that it is time for them to move, as her isolated location will be a magnet for passing trouble from that road.
That road will kill the resale value of her place, I suspect. They got 15 years out of it.
Wonder if T-rump will kill that project?