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If home is where the heart is, what do you say about someone who lives inside an abandoned missile silo? More importantly, what do they say about themselves? For Edward and Dianna Peden, home is a refurbished Atlas-E missile silo 25 miles west of Topeka, Kansas. During the darkest days of the Cold War, their underground home housed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a 4-megaton warhead. Today, "Subterra", as their 34-acre estate is known, provides what the Pedens call "a quiet, peaceful environment" which "offers many features that many find uplifting and fun." As the couple explains on their web site, "We of Subterra hold a vision of a healthy, healing, community environment, nurturing Body, Mind, and Spirit."
A Cold War Fire Sale
During the 1960s, the United States Air Force (USAF) abandoned scores of Atlas-E, Atlas-F and Titan-I missile silos as technological advances made their weapons obsolete. For as little as a dollar apiece, the USAF then sold these Cold War relics to farmers, salvage companies and rural school districts. Today, 150 schoolchildren attend classes in a decommissioned missile silo near Holton, Kansas. Edward Peden paid a far larger sum ($40,000) for what he calls his "twentieth-century castle", but his 1984 purchase was still a bargain. According to the New York Times, an Atlas-E missile silo cost the American taxpayer a whopping $4 million in 1959. Abandoned six years later, the 120-foot steel-ribbed tunnel flooded with rainwater and remained dark and dank until nearly twenty years later, when Ed Peden explored the facility with a flashlight and a canoe.
There's No Place Like Home
Pumped dry and well-lit, "Subterra" is now a split-level home with four bedrooms and two baths. The 47-ton garage door that was once the entrance to the missile bay can now be opened with a hand crank. The launch control room where USAF technicians once readied a nuclear weapon during the Cuban Missile Crisis now serves as a living room and boasts a cozy wood stove. During the 1990s, the concrete bay that once held an Atlas-E missile contained wooden propellers, fiberglass cockpits and aluminum wings for Ed Peden's ultralight planes, many of which sold for more than $15,000.
Pssst. Wanna Buy a Missile Silo?
Ed Peden no longer sells flying machines, but he can sell you an abandoned missile silo. His business, 20th Century Castles, has provided over 40 of these derelict properties to "excited owners that plan to refurbish and use them for various personal and commercial purposes". So if you're thinking of buying a castle of your own, now is the time to act. "Because the availability of these properties is limited", Peden's web site explains, "these properties are selling fast."
Resources:
http://itotd.com/articles/282/missile-silo-homes/
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE4DC1639F932A35752C1A963958260
http://www.subterracastle.com/
http://www.atlasmissilesilo.com/images/web_atlas_silo1.jpg
Steve Melito - The Y Files
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Re: Home Sweet Missile Silo
