The home was built in the mid-1970s by one Girard B. “Jerry” Henderson, an entrepreneur whose company, Underground World Home, specialised in luxury bunkers. Henderson wasn’t always an underground homebuilder. Born in Brooklyn in 1905, he climbed rose through the corporate ladder to become director of Avon and found his own education charity. Underground living was more of a hobby, until the Cold War — and demand for bunker homes boomed.
Henderson’s business was partially targeting Americans anxious over the threat of nuclear war, but its homes were a far cry from the average backyard bunker. In a brochure distributed at the 1965 World’s Fair, Henderson and architect Jay Swayze touted the fact that his homes provided all the benefits of American suburbia. In fact, it was even better than suburbia, because it ensured complete and utter control over the environment:
The 200,000-odd fallout shelters Americans built during the Cold War were designed to offer meta-suburbia: A network of unregulated homes intentionally separated from the world at large and designed to minimize every bit of contact with others. Some were luxurious — like Henderson’s — and others were bare bones.
The Cold War Bunker That Offered Subterranean Suburbia Below Las Vegas
The real estate listing for 3970 Spencer St shows a foreclosed two-bedroom on a suburban street east of the Las Vegas Strip. That’s nothing remarkable in Vegas, which has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, but this house is special: It’s 8m underground. A high-end fallout...
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