This Mega-Mansion Is "The Safest House," With Bunker and a Car Vault Behind a Waterfall

No one likes to live today dreading what tomorrow might bring, but as the saying goes, it's best to be prepared. And prepared is what one Atlanta-based entrepreneur was when he started planning for the Rice House, which he imagined would become his family's legacy. It didn't because his son had other ideas for a perfect family home, but in the process, Rice House became the "safest house in America."

"House" is a massive understatement, of course.

Rice House is a compound, a vast property that can fit the entire extended family and assorted staff, which offers the most incredible luxury features, and safety specs like few other residential constructions. At 36,000 square feet (3,344.5 square meters) of living space, it's a mega-mansion, while its start construction date (2010) puts it way ahead the mega-mansion trend that swept the U.S. a few years ago.

Rice House is a trendsetter and, at the same time, a residential home that is guaranteed to last for the next 1,000 years, regardless of what might happen during this time. It offers protection for the residents, collectibles, and an entire fleet of 30-cars, because the same entrepreneur who gets credit for building it wanted it to incorporate every one of his boyhood dreams. That includes a Batcave, which here translates to a car vault that hides behind a waterfall.

This mega-mansion is first and foremost a family home, with 8 bedrooms, 9 full bathrooms and 6 half-baths, 3 kitchens, an art museum, an infinity pool, an extra-large home cinema, a wine cellar, a wellness area, a two-lane bowling alley, a glass conservatory, an infinity pool, and all the trappings of a modern luxury life.

But it's its safety features that have earned it the title of the country's "safest" house, with credit for it going to Al Corbi, founder of SAFE (Strategically Armored and Fortified Environments) and famous security expert.

The house itself is an impenetrable fortress, with bombproof walls and doors, and bullet-proof windows. Much like an onion, it has several layers of security, with the core – the Safe Core Rooms – being made up of the master bedroom, the kid's room, and the guest bedrooms. These rooms have Kevlar doors that can stop an AK47 or an AR15, and command centers that offer a clear view of the other rooms and the option to spray tear gas on the intruders.

Should this final layer also be penetrated, there's a 15,000 square-foot (1,393.5 square-meter) bunker underneath the mansion, which is a self-contained unit on its own. It includes a gun range, secret tunnels and hidden access points, a bank vault, and something called a "concealed conversation tunnel." It's a 100-foot (30.5-meter) long 5-foot (1.5-meter) wide tunnel that connects several areas in the bunker.

Another high-tech command center is located in the bunker, and there's a third one outside, in the control tower. At the time the mansion went up for auction in 2017, the listing boasted that you could keep at least one $20 million painting in the house and still sleep soundly every night. That, again, is an understatement.

You could also keep the same amount in cars, locked safely in the 5,000 square-foot (4,64.5 square-meter) car vault. The initial plan was to have all entries to it hidden behind a waterfall, but we couldn't verify if it was carried through. The last time the property went up for sale, when construction was nearly completed, photos showed the car vault tucked into the hill and obscured from sight by it. You could still see the entrance, though.

The initial plan also included columns here to match the exterior of the mansion, which was partly inspired by the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. But the owner wanted more space, so he fought with the architect until he got his way, by means of 19 beams weighing 25 tons each and 30 steel rods of pre-stressed steel that did away with the need to put in columns to support the ceiling.

Rice House comes with three 1,000-foot (305-meter) water wells, solar power, and geothermal heating and cooling, so it can be self-sufficient if push comes to shove. Should the worst happen, it's big enough to offer privacy to family members looking for it, since a full tour of the place takes almost three hours. In between the various "layers" of the compound, you and your significant other could successfully avoid each other until whatever crisis is happening outside is over.

With all this happening in its favor and the media attention it got, Rice House never quite really lived up to expectations – or not the financial ones, at least. The owner reportedly spent $30 million over several years to build it, and it was originally listed for $23.3 million, with the mention that a further $3 million to $5 million was necessary for completion.

By 2017, the asking dropped to $14.7 million, and it eventually went to auction with an estimate of $3.9 million. The final figure was never revealed to the public, but online rumors claim it could have been as low as $1.8 million. It's not bad for a zombie- and bomb-proof mega-mansion with a matching badass car vault from the new owner's perspective, but it's terrible news for the original one.