As you wend your way up the driveway, this Kentucky mansion isn’t particularly remarkable. Sure, it’s big and imposing, but so are many other multimillion-dollar homes.
However, this home in Richmond, KY, comes with an underground secret.
The 14,300-square-foot home is listed for $6.5 million, which also might seem on the high side—based on what you can see from the exterior.
“It was built by someone who wanted the ultimate fallout shelter. He wanted it to be very secure, and he wanted it to have things that none of the other ones had,” explains the listing agent, Marilyn Hoffman with Hoffman International Properties. “It’s a nuclear, biological, and chemical fallout shelter.”
The fallout shelter that stands at the ready beneath this behemoth measures 2,000 square feet and is built 26 feet underground. It features 39-inch solid concrete ceilings and 15-inch walls.
“It’s reported to be the most secure home on the market,” Hoffman says. “It’s built to withstand a earthquake. It has three air-filtration systems imported from Switzerland. It has two escape tunnels, and one is approximately 100 feet long. You couldn’t find a more secure place. It also comes with about $50,000 worth of food that will last about 25 years.”
The owner and builder of the shelter is Clinton Wesley Morgan , a former member of the Kentucky House of Representatives. He ran for the state’s U.S. Senate nomination in 2020 as a Republican, against Mitch McConnell .
Hoffman says Morgan built the shelter right after 9/11.
“I guess he thought the world was coming to an end,” she says, “and he needed to protect his family. He spent over $2 million on it.”
“The shelter is very large and luxurious,” Hoffman says. “You don’t feel closed in at all, like you would in a panic room or in another fallout shelter. Most of them are small and dinky and ugly. This one’s beautiful and very spacious and very luxurious.”
The agent says she was astonished when she first visited the house.
“I’d never seen anybody build something like this for their personal use,” she says. “I’ve seen fallout shelters before built for corporations or for companies that needed a lot of people, but this was strictly built for a family.”In the interest of self-sufficiency, the 200-acre property also has two natural gas wells, two 1,000-gallon underground propane tanks, an 8,000-gallon pressurized water tank, and three generators.
