Billionaire Bunkers: Beyond the Panic Room, Home Security Goes Sci-Fi
Luxury home builders have discovered that buyers will pay top dollar for such extensively fortified mansions. One compound on hyperexclusive Indian Creek Island in Miami, Fla., completed in early 2012, includes a fully stocked safe room that operates on its own generator and has a separate ventilation system, a wine cellar wired with facial recognition software and an infrared surveillance system. The property traded last year for $47 million–the highest price ever paid for a house in Miami-Dade County. “In my opinion, will the buyer use [the panic room]? Probably never, realistically. But did it help sell the home? Yes, definitely,” says Oren Alexander, of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, who cobrokered the sale.