The Bear Den - Underground Survival Home

I've had pictures to this place saved on my computer for ages. It is the ultimate survival home, and I mean ultimate! It's no longer for sale and the listing for it has circled the drain of internet time, although, I did manage to find an old copy of it on a forum.
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The Bear Den
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Strategically located in the awesome San Juan mountains of Southwest Colorado, this patented steel-reinforced concrete earth home was built to withstand almost any natural or man-made disaster you can name. It is more secure, safe, and functional than any conventional house could ever be, yet still has a level of comfort that one might not expect to find in an underground home.

The adjoining vacant 3 acre parcel is also available.

JUST REDUCED $50,000.... NOW ONLY $450,000

Surveillance Camera

Some years ago, the owner of this property had a hunting cabin in another part of Colorado. Beautiful, yes, but the wood construction posed numerous problems. Several "near-miss" incidents made the owner realize how vulnerable the cabin was to any number of disasters and threats. A winter storm, which blew the front door open, might have caused the water pipes to freeze and break, flooding both the upper and lower levels, resulting in many thousands of dollars damage, had it not been discovered in time. A forest fire, which started when a tree fell on the above-ground power line leading to the cabin, came frighteningly close to the wood structure and to within just a few feet of the above-ground propane tanks. A hailstorm necessitated a new roof, a new paint job, and major repairs to the siding. The large front glass windows were spared from damage, but nevertheless were extremely vulnerable. And finally, when the cabin was broken into and many valuable antiques were stolen, the owner decided to look for a safer kind of structure for their retreat, and a better, more remote location.

After spending 2 ½ years studying every kind of alternative home construction, everything from earthships made out of spare tires, to rammed-earth construction, to monolithic domes, he ultimately realized there was only one kind of construction that would afford him the kind of security they wanted: an earth home (made with Formwork's patented thin-shell concrete construction technique). The house he finally built is not just any earth home. It is what has come to be known in the industry as a "secure home." It is an unparalleled model of the ultimate secure home. Its many features will amaze you.

This patented steel-reinforced concrete earth sheltered structure, properly called a thin-shell dome, is built to withstand almost any natural or man-made disaster you can name. And that's not just an idle promise. These buildings have withstood tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes - some measuring close to 7.0 on the Richter scale - and in every case they have come away with no structural damage at all. Unlike monolithic domes, and all other types of home construction, only Formwork's concrete domes can be completely buried deep underground.

The house has 2472 square feet, with an additional 800 square feet in the attached 24' x 36' underground garage. The main floor of the house consists of a large living room, two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, pantry, and laundry closet. Upstairs is a loft and two multi-purpose storage/sleeping rooms. The house currently has ten beds (that is, beds, futons, and sleeping bunks) in seven different rooms. There is lots of additional space for other cots or bedrolls. It would be very accommodating for an entire extended family during a prolonged national emergency or global crisis. The safe room also has a ¾ bath with shower. A 22' long x 6' wide hallway leads to the garage. This hall is lined on one side with 18" deep shelf units, providing a considerable amount of quick-access storage. The other wall of this hall is a convenient place to store larger items, such as skis, bicycles, or a vacuum cleaner, that wouldn't fit on the shelves. Additionally, a large storage attic is found above the garage.
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The living room's high-domed ceiling gives the room an open, spacious feeling. A custom steel stairway leads from the loft to a cupola perched on top of the house. Light from the cupola gives the same effect as a skylight, but without any loss in security. The four windows in this "lookout" allow for a 360-degree view of the surrounding property.
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"Energy efficient" implies extra insulation and double pane glass windows to most people, but this type of earth home has proven itself to be the ultimate in energy efficiency/heat retention. With no heat at all, the inside temperature will not drop below 50 degrees F., even in extreme, prolonged winter conditions. For comfort, however, there is a Harmon wood/coal freestanding stove, along with a back-up propane heater. In the summer months, the house temperature stays pleasantly cool.

Every appliance throughout the house was specially manufactured for use in solar electric homes. The kitchen has a Sun Frost refrigerator/freezer, a Peerless propane range with "no-glow-bar" oven, and a Staber 2000 clothes washer, while the garage has a chest-style freezer.

A 1,000 gallon underground propane tank is extremely well hidden and protected from potential vandals. The generator, water heater, kitchen range and oven, wall heater, and clothes dryer all use propane, but the large amount of stored propane should supply all of these appliances for a very long time. In an all-out national crisis, it would be a simple matter to heat water with the back-up wood-fired water heater, and to dry clothes with an old fashioned hand wringer and clothesline. Also, as a back-up to the propane range, there is a Stanley-Waterton wood stove and range.
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Joel Skousen, the renowned expert on secure homes, and author of the book "The Secure Home", and editor/publisher of the excellent newsletter "The World Affairs Brief", has laid down a list of what he considers to be essential for self-sufficiency and security. The essentials are: an independent water supply as well as a back-up supply, alternate electrical power, energy efficient appliances, alternate forms of heat, more than one communication option, adequate storage facilities, including cool storage for long-term food storage, fire-resistant construction and the ability to fight a fire inside the house, multiple forms of security and intruder detection, a high-security safe room/fallout shelter, above normal fortification of the house and grounds and a remote location. Joel states that very few people actually achieve 100% of these elements. It's safe to say, this house has it all!

Even though Joel listed remote location last, it is, perhaps, the most important criteria. So important an issue that he wrote a separate book about it entitled, "Strategic Relocation". To build a secure home in the city or even in the suburbs would likely be self-defeating. If however, the secure home is built in a remote location, it then, and only then, can be considered a true retreat. The two, a secure home and a remote location, go hand in hand.

Following the tragic 9/11 attacks, a renewed interest in civil defense and personal preparedness alike has occurred that is unrivalled since the start of the Cold War following WWII. Since then, the need for owning a secure home has taken on a new urgency. For the past two or more years, the news has been full of scary reports about the possibility of bio-terrorism and resulting pandemic.

More recently, there have been reports about the possibility of nuclear terrorism on American soil using suitcase nukes. On December 5th, 2004, CNN had a special documentary about the inevitability of nuclear terrorism. When the controlled secular media is reporting on such a controversial topic as this with such candor, it should be taken very seriously.

Water Spring

The Center for Disease Control, along with the World Health Organization, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security have been repeatedly warning us that another flu pandemic, worse than ever before, is bound to occur. In fact, they are now routinely using the word pandemic, instead of epidemic.

To put this prediction into proper perspective it is important to realize that the great Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 killed well over 20 million people worldwide, more people in one year than the Black Plague killed in the entire four years of its outbreak.

Safe Room Door

The government officials are not only worried about a flu pandemic, but also about the possibility that a major smallpox outbreak will happen. In fact, they are so worried about smallpox that, in June of 2001, they conducted a major simulation of a terrorist smallpox attack against 3 American cities. It was named Dark Winter, and it lived up to its name.

Generator

The results of this exercise were grim, to put it mildly. According to the National Security Council, the worst case scenario was that within seven weeks, one million Americans would be dead, many millions others would be sick, and the disease would have spread to 25 states and to 13 foreign countries.

One can only imagine what the results of the Dark Winter exercise would have been if it was done with such an airborn killer virus, instead of just smallpox.
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Safe Room Controls

Air Filter

Many scientists and physicians are telling us that the diseases which have in the past been primarily found in the Third World, or underdeveloped countries, such as the filoviruses Marburg and Ebola, are poised to soon enter the West. When this does happen, newspaper headlines and reports will no longer ignore them nor treat them so casually. With population growth, unprecedented immigration, increased global travel, and the likelihood that terrorists and rouge nations alike now have many weaponized microbes in their arsenals, the possibility of a major international pandemic looms ever closer on the horizon.

So what does the future hold for us with the possibility of future plagues, nuclear terrorism, and even nuclear war? The owner definitely doesn't know the answer to this question. He does know, however, that his house would be a very safe place for self-quarantine during such an outbreak or event. One reason why is because it is equipped with a genuine Swiss-made Luwa nuclear, biological, chemical air filter that will effectively filter out all known bacteriological agents, all known viruses, and even radioactive fallout.
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A secure home like this is the wave of the future, and would be a very wise investment, both practically and financially. A house of such outstanding design, quality, function, and security doesn't appear on the open real estate market very often, if at all. While nobody knows for sure how much time is left before things go awry, one thing is certain; it is better to be prepared a year or more too early, than to be a single day too late.
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Update: I found an old website about the home.
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