Paranoid in Pink: 1970s Bunker-Dwelling in Las Vegas for Sale

The underground pink kitchen
The underground pink kitchen

by Matt Hickman, Mother Nature Network

Are you bemoaning that summer and all the backyard-centric activities associated with it -- barbecuing, swimming, unwinding in a hot tub, romping around on the grass, throwing a rowdy al fresco dance parties under a starlit sky -- is soon coming to an end? Well, start saving -- and stockpiling dry goods -- as a Las Vegas property where you can partake in all of your favorite backyard leisure activities year-round, rain or shine, has reappeared on the market with a just-reduced price tag of $1.6 million.

Oh, and also, the two-bedroom ranch-style property, complete with detached one-bedroom guest quarters and a heated in-ground pool, is located 26 feet underground within a 15,200-square-foot basement that was built in the late 1970s as a Cold War-era bunker.

So there's that.

Because really, if you're going to be holed up in a concrete-reinforced subterranean lair during a nuclear fallout - or zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, viral pandemic, etc. - you might as well do so surrounded by your love ones ... and a sauna, a couple of Jacuzzis, a working fireplace, a dance floor, a four-hole Astro-Turf putting green, a BBQ grill built into a massive faux-boulder, and the most offensively pink bathroom known to mankind.

And don't even get me started on the 360-degree "outdoor" mural depicting soothing, pastoral scenes along with a variety of woodland critters - the non-working pump well is a nice touch - and the remote-control "day," "dusk," "sunset," and "night" lighting system that listing agent Winston King -"Makes you feel at home, outdoorsy" - kindly demos in the video tour. Las Vegas Inc. also recently published an extensive photo gallery of the bunker (much more jaw-dropping than the listing photos) including an up-close look at the mural.

Also see: Meet the family behind 'Doomsday Castle'

The creation of wealthy businessman, philanthropist, and pioneering underground mansion enthusiast Jerry Henderson, the underground home at 3970 Spencer St. defies easy description. I guess you could describe the 5,200-square-foot subterranean manse as what happens when Batman, the set decorator from "The Brady Bunch," Walt Disney, Mary Kay Ash, and the cast of "Doomsday Preppers" get together for a big ol' orgy in the Vegas desert.

Given that the home so effectively marries hideous late '70s opulence and technology (toaster ovens built into the walls!) with Cold War era paranoia, I'm somewhat shocked that an Infowars-obsessed nut with a penchant for pink shag carpeting and chintzy water features has yet to step forward to claim it as his or her own. The bank-owned property previously hit the market for $8 million in 2001 after a distant relative of Henderson's named Tex Edmundson decided to part ways with it after nearly a decade of ownership. Last year, it entered foreclosure just like many of its aboveground neighbors in foreclosure-ridden Vegas. The previous owner paid $2 million for it in 2005.

The bonkers house-within-a-basement spread - Brooklyn-born Henderson, a longtime board member of Avon Products, and his second wife Mary, a former Beverly Hills hairdresser, actually lived there full-time according to The Review Journal - is located directly beneath a rather humdrum two-story suburban home that, while completely habitable, pretty much functions as a decoy for the immaculately preserved paranoia-borne time warp/wax museum dressed in pink that lies below (the aboveground "caretaker's home" was added in 1988). The bunker itself can be accessed through the caretaker's home, via a secret staircase in a shed, or by descending in an elevator that's hidden away within a cluster of ersatz rocks on the gated 1-acre lot which, by the way, is marked with "clues" such as air conditioning units and vents emerging from the ground.

Any thoughts? Fascinating? Depressing? A little bit of both? Anyone happen to catch the home when it appeared on "CSI" or actually stepped inside for a private event or tour?

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