SILO HOUSE WINDOWS

Hall: We said, 'Hey, if we're gonna build a high-end bunker, I'd hate to, like, need protection for two years and only have designed it for one and a half years.' So we said, 'What would we have to do to make this place capable of sustaining people indefinitely?' And that turned out to be quite a cost-driver. In 2008, Larry Hall bought the property for $300,000. Narrator: It's 15 stories deep with walls up to 9 feet thick that can withstand a direct nuclear impact. Larry Hall: It's not the luxury that drives the cost, it's the caliber of the infrastructure and the threats you're protecting against, and, most importantly, the duration that you can be off-grid for. Welcome to the $3 million doomsday-proof condo. But there's one in an undisclosed location north of Wichita, Kansas, that has taken on a new purpose. Narrator: During the Cold War, the US government built numerous missile silos in secret locations across the country. The top-level observatory is decorated with finds from the Grants world travels.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. The kitchen cupboards and counter are custom built to match the home’s curving walls. “We love to sit up here then, have a glass of wine, put some music on, and just enjoy it,” she said.

SILO HOUSE WINDOWS

In the winter, with the leaves down, the observatory’s windows offer a stunning panoramic view of Lake Huron. In fact, when they bought the home long-distance from the Persian Gulf state, “the rumour went around the Grove it had been bought by Arabs,” Grant said. The top room is furnished in curving “majilas,” traditional Bedouin floor seats custom made in Qatar, where the Grants lived for 10 years. Gawkers sometimes mistake it for a lighthouse because the fourth and uppermost level is a glass-enclosed observatory. Rising up 55 feet and made of poured concrete a foot-and-a-half thick, it withstood two tornadoes and countless lake storms over 172 years.

The farm, Westwinds, belonged to Jones’ son, and though the farmhouse and fields are long gone the silo endures, said Grant, who is herself the grand daughter of Wilfred Hamilton, the Bright’s Grove landowner for whom Hamilton Road is named. The silo was built to store grain grown on the original Lake Huron land tract granted to Maxwell commune founder Henry Jones, and stands today at the intersection of Brigden and Hamilton roads. The fridge and stove were installed in the 1970s, and how the movers got them up the tight stairwell is anybody’s guess, Grant says. The stairs – all 44 of them – lead up to a bathroom and bedroom on the second floor, and above that to the kitchen.Įverything, from the oddball-sized bed to the cupboards and drawers, are custom-fit for the curved walls. The heart of the silo home is a circular iron staircase salvaged from a burned Petrolia church in the 1940s by the Braybrook family, who converted the structure to habitable space. “I lost 10 pounds the first month I was here.” “But when you want a beer you have to run up to the third floor,” she added. “When people first see it they love it because it’s so strange,” said Patti Grant, who bought the silo and its attached home with husband Doug in 2007. The “Silo House” in Bright’s Grove is four floors of handcrafted originality packed into a converted grain silo built in 1842 for the community’s first farm.

One of Sarnia’s funkiest homes is also one of its oldest structures.

Silo house